ETK 101E

ENGINEERING ETHICS
. Metin Mhakan
Spring
p g Semester,, 2012

ETK 101E - ENGINEERING ETHICS

INTRODUCTION
. Metin Mhakan
Spring
p g Semester,, 2012

Petrobras-36 Incident
In year 2000,
2000 Petrobras
had spent US$350 million
((today
y US$454
$
million))
to convert the Spirit of
Columbus, a semisubmersible drilling rig,
into the worlds largest oil
production
d ti
platform
l tf
P36
P36,
which started producing
180 000 bbls/day oil at
180,000
Rocandor oil field 130 km
offshore Brasil in Atlantic
Ocean.

Petrobras-36 Incident
At that time a Petrobras Executive, extolling the
benefits of cutting quality assurance, inspection
costs, and client control on the project, stated that

Petrobras has established new global benchmarks for

p
shareholder wealth
the ggeneration off exceptional
through an aggressive and innovative program of cost
cutting on its P36 production facility.
Conventional constraints have been successfully
g and replaced
p
with new pparadigms
g ((that are))
challenged
appropriate to the globalized corporate market place.

Petrobras-36 Incident
and he continued as,

Through an integrated network of facilitated workshops,

the pproject
j successfully
f y rejected
j
the established negative
g
and constricting influences of prescriptive engineering,
onerous quality requirements, and outdated concepts of
inspection and
d client
l
control.
l
Elimination off these unnecessaryy ((tasks)) has empowered
p
the project's suppliers and contractors to propose highly
economical solutions, with the win-win bonus of
enhanced profitability margins for themselves. The P36
platform shows the shape of things to come in the
unregulated
l t d global
l b l market
k t economy off the
th 21st
21 t Century.
C t

Petrobras-36 Incident
About half past midnight
on 15 March 2001, an
explosion occurred as the
result
lt off the
th rupture
t
off
Emergency Drain Tank
(EDT) due to excessive
pressure, in the starboard
aft column of the P-36.
The rupture
Th
t
caused
d damage
d
to
t various
i
equipment
i
t
and installations, leading to the flooding of water, oil
and gas into the starboard aft column.
column Emergency
Firefighting Service was sent to the area.

Petrobras-36 Incident
Dispersed gas caught fire,
causing a major explosion
and death of 11 of 175
crew onboard.
b
d Evacuation
E
ti
began at 06:00 hours and
P-36
P
36 was abandoned.
abandoned By
08:15, P-36 inclined more
than 16 degrees
g
and had
started sinking.
During March 17 to 19, nitrogen injection continued
into the submerged pontoon to stabilize the P-36 and
reduce the inclination to 22 degrees at one stage.

Petrobras-36 Incident
On March 20, nitrogen
injection continued, yet
the continuous flooding
fi ll d
finally
destabilized
t bili d P
P-36
36
05:30
Inclination reached 31
09:00
Inclination reached 45

At 10.45, P-36 sank down to 1360-m water depth.

Petrobras-36 Incident
A result of successful rejection of Prescriptive
Engineering and Onerous
Engineering
Onerous Quality Requirements.
Requirements

Petrobras-36 Incident
A result of successful rejection of Outdated
Concepts of Inspection
Inspection and Client
Client Control.
Control

Petrobras-36 Incident

AFTERMATH

Petrobras-36 Incident

QUIESCENCE

Petrobras-36 Incident
Recall what a Petrobras Executive had stated.

Petrobras has established new global

benchmarks for the generation of exceptional

shareholder wealth through an aggressive and
g
off cost cutting
g on its P36
innovative pprogram
production facility.
Conventional constraints have been successfully

challenged and replaced with new paradigms

(that are) appropriate to the globalized corporate
market place.

Petrobras Now

Ford Pinto Case

The Ford Pinto is a subcompact car produced by the
Ford Motor Company between 19711980.
19711980
Until 1978, there had been some 50 lawsuits related
to rear-end
rear end collisions,
collisions which caused fuel tank bursts.
bursts

Ford Pinto Case

A number of rear-end impact collisions caused the
Pintos
Pinto
s fuel tank to rupture and burst into flames,
flames
leading to the deaths of people riding in those cars.
Ford
F
d Motor
M t Company
C
h d been
had
b
charged
h
d in
i a criminal
i i l
court for the death of the passengers.
The civil lawsuits only resulted in Ford paying for the
damages to the victims estates.
A criminal proceeding, on the other hand, indicated
that Ford was g
grossly
y negligent
g g
in the deaths of the
passengers and could result in jail terms for the Ford
engineers or managers who worked on the Pinto.

Ford Pinto Case

The case against Ford hinged on charges that it was
known that the gas
gas-tank
tank design was flawed and was
not in line with accepted engineering standards,
even though
g it did meet applicable
pp
federal safety
y
standards at that time.
During the court trial,
trial it was determined that Ford
engineers were aware of the dangers of this design,
but management had constrained the engineers to
use this design.
Because the managers concerned only with getting
the Pinto to market rapidly at a price competitive
with subcompact cars already introduced or planned
by other manufacturers.

Ford Pinto Case

The dilemma encountered by the design engineers
was to balance their duty to the public (the safety of
people riding in the car) against their duty to their
employer
p y (the need to p
produce the Pinto at a pprice that
would be competitive in the market.)
At the end,
end the attempt by Ford to save few dollars
in manufacturing costs led to the expenditure of
millions of dollars in lawsuit defences and payments
to victims.
There were also uncountable costs in lost sales due
to bad publicity and a public perception that Ford did
not engineer its products to be safe.
safe

Background
g
Petrobras-36 and the Pinto cases are merely two
examples of the ethical problems faced by engineers
in the course of their professional practice.
Ethicall cases are nott limited
Ethi
li it d to
t the
th issues
i
off public
bli
or work place safety.
Ethical cases may involve bribery, fraud, protection
of environment, fairness, honesty in research and
testing, and conflicts of interest.
Therefore,, during
g their undergraduate
g
education
training engineers in business practice, safety, and
ethics is a major necessity.

Background
g
The ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and
Technology) has mandated the incorporation of ethics
topics into undergraduate engineering curricula.
As an ABET accredited
A
dit d university,
i
it stanbul
t b l Technical
T h i l
University has abided by the ABET requirement and
added ethics and engineering ethics courses to its
curricula.
The purpose of this course of Engineering Ethics
is to provide future engineers be prepared for
confronting and resolving ethical dilemmas they
might encounter during their professional careers.