Free Ethics Essay Example

Gather Information

In the case study at hand, I am part of the team that is working on an issue of a returned measurement equipment. I work on Velky Measurement, and as part of the team working in that team, my presence is needed in the representatives meeting to evaluate the cause the failure of the returned measurement equipment. Velky Measurement does provide different types of electronic equipments to DGC Corporation. In the case at hand, it is quite clear that the company management does not want to accept the fact that the product in question failed due to design problems, as this means that DDC will lose confidence on the products supplied to it by the company. The project manager agrees to replace the failed measurement equipment, but does not agree to the idea of revealing the truth about the product design failure. Therefore, as part of the team, which knows about the product problem, I am faced with an ethical dilemma on what to do in this situation.

Identify Stakeholders

In this situation, there are different stakeholders that are affected in one way or another by the activities of the firm. To start with, DGC Corporation is one of the stakeholders. The corporation uses the measurement equipments made by the firm, and any default in the equipments has a direct impact on their operations in a negative way. Secondly, Velky Measurement is the one offering electronic measurement equipment in the market and is responsible to ensure that the product offered to the customer do not have any default and as this would be amounting to breaching the contract between it and DGC. On the other hand, the project manager is another stakeholder in this case study. He is supposed to ensure that the products offered by the company to customers meet all the quality standards set, before they are offered to the customers. Lastly, the company employees are also stakeholders. They are supposed to be whistleblowers by creating awareness of the product defaults and ensuring that appropriate measures are taken to rectify the defaults in question.

Identify Relevant Ethical Values

Based on IEEE Code there are a number of ethical values that can be applied in this case study. Firstly, there is the value the manufacturer accepting full responsibility about equipment default to the customers during the decision making process. Secondly, there is a need for the firm to be honest in stating the reasons why the equipment failed so as to boost customers’ confidence in using its products in the future. In this case the company does not observe these two ethical values when dealing with its customers as per the requirement of IEEE Code.

Determine a Course of Action

In this situation there are two possible courses of action the firm can the. The first course of action can be to reveal the main cause of the equipment failure to DGC Corporation and accept full responsibility. In this course of action it will explain the measures that it would be taking in order to ensure that a similar problem is not reported in the future. The second course of action, would be the management of the firm, to keep quiet about the default and replace the equipment without accepting the responsibility of the equipment default.
The best course of action would be the first option, whereby it should accept responsibility and be honest to DGC. This will boost the confidence and trust that this client has over the company products in the future. It would also seal rooms where the company may hear from a third party about the equipment default, thereby taking legal actions against the firm or damaging it reputation.