Engineers are the professionals who are the masterminds of projects. Specifically civil engineers are the ones who oversee the construction of buildings, roads and other structures. According to findings of American Society of Civil Engineers (2000), in their day to day work, they encounter various problems concerning their professionalism. It is important to note that when a problem happens in the construction industry the first accusing finger is pointed towards the civil engineer who was assigned to the structure in question. Some of these problems are caused by engineers who fail to stick to the ethics of engineering. This paper reviews some of the reasons behind the setbacks in construction industry.
A major constraint in any engineering practice, especially multinational corporations, is the international law. An international agreement is not a law in a country but it binds all the members of that association while a law is applied in a country and it varies from one country to another. Thus, it has an impact on the delivery of engineering or spatial science projects in any particular country. An example of international agreements is the forest principles of the Rio Earth Summit which applies to countries that are members of the United Nations. This agreement encourages governments to preserve forests. For instance, before the construction of a building or any other structure commences the engineers are the ones who are responsible of verifying the plan of the building and they act as the project managers because they are the ones who man the entire process of construction. They are the ones who schedule tasks and determine the timeline that the project should take (Kelleher, 2005).
In addition to that, they are the ones who compute the budgets of projects. Sweet and Schneier (2008) argue that all of the above tasks are supposed to be carried out with honesty. Engineers are supposed to make their decisions without being manipulated but some of them fall in this test may be due to greed. They are faced with a dilemma of delivering projects that meet customer requirements and at the same time satisfying their personal needs.
There are engineers who are corrupt because they are bribed by those who supply building materials in order to grant them tenders for supplying the said materials. According to Madhavan, Oakley, and Kun (2008), sometimes the materials are of poor quality which can be dangerous to the stability of the structure in question. This is also another form of negligence which often results in the collapse of the structure. This happens when engineers are selfish and are not concerned about the welfare of others because when a building collapses its not the engineer who is injured but the construction workers and other people who are adjacent to the structure.
Kelleher (2005) explains that when such things happen, the engineer in question may loose his/her membership and certificate of registration in addition to being sued in a court of law. Engineers are supposed to ensure that their employer, that is, the project developer fulfills all the legal requirements before the commencement of a project.
Sometimes the engineers themselves sabotage the efforts of their fellow engineers hence an engineer should be vigilant at all times. Engineers are supposed to withhold details concerning the owner of the structure that they are working on. Engineers are prone to being manipulated by those in influential government offices to obtain money fraudulently by over estimating the budget of the project. But then this vice cannot go unnoticed because if the project is evaluated by surveyors, they are most likely to notice that the quality of work on the ground does not correspond to the proposal on paper.
An example of how negligence can lead to loss of lives is the Tay bridge disaster which took place in December 1879. In this disaster the bridge was brought down by a strong wind that was accompanied by a heavy down fall of rain. It is perceived that the engineer who was in charge of its construction used materials of low quality. Perhaps he/she did this to save some extra bucks but then he ruined his reputation due to the many lives that were lost on that particular day (Christou, 2005).
Therefore, engineers should adhere to the ethics of engineering because they are not only answerable to governments in their respective countries but also to God. An engineer should always interpret and evaluate the consequences of his/her actions because overlooking issues can be disastrous as mentioned above.
Reference List
American Society of Civil Engineers., 2000. Standards of Professional Conduct. Reston, Virginia: ASCE Press.
Christou, R., 2005.Boilerplate: Practical Clauses. 4th Ed. London: Sweet & Maxwell Limited.
Kelleher, T., 2005. Smith, Currie & Hancock’s Common Sense Construction Law. 3rd Eds. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Madhavan, G., Oakley, B. & Kun, G., 2008. Career Development in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, New York: Springer Science and Business Media.
Sweet, J. & Schneier, M., 2008. Legal Aspects of Architecture, Engineering and the Construction Process. Stanford, CT: Cengage Learning.