reading assignment

I. Client Duties

A. ENGR-Client Relation

1. Engineers are necessary to solve complex material problems.

2. Clients primarily need engineers to provide necessary information (skills, experience, etc.)

3. Client-Function: motive for engineering work--they bring and pay for the specific complex material problems for engineers to work on

4. ENGR Virtue: Trustworthy

B. Consent (governs the employment of agent expertise)

1. Honesty: Provide all relevant good information and no bad information needed for client to make informed decision

a. don’t lie

b. don’t deliberately deceive

c. don’t withhold the truth

d. don’t fail to seek the truth

2. Analysis: Provide an appropriate level of analysis of information needed for client to make informed decision

a. relatively naive clients require more interpretation

b. relatively sophisticated clients require less interpretation

C. Confidentiality (governs the taking on of client interests)

1. Don’t reveal potentially harmful information to outside sources without explicit and prior consent

2. Outside Sources

a. Competition

b. Media/public

c. Legal Authorities/Regulatory agencies

d. Casual acquaintances

3. Potentially Harmful Information

a. Sensitive information

i. business affairs

ii. personal affairs

b. Protected information

i. Formal: patents, copyrights, non-disclosure agreements

ii. Informal: relatively specific knowledge and relevantly similar applications

II. Employer Duties

A. ENGR-Employer Relation

1. Engineers are not sufficient to solve complex material problems, lots of other resources are required

2. Companies primarily need ENGRs to cooperate with other necessary resources.

3. Employer-Function: Coordination of various resources needed to solve complex material problems

4. ENGR Virtue: Loyalty

B. Proper Management Decisions (governs the taking on of employer interests)

1. Some decisions regarding the workings of the company really are the special province of business managers who have distinctive specialized knowledge and skills.

2. These decisions have to do with such things as

a. budget

b. scheduling

c. personnel

d. marketing

3. ENGRs should respect these proper management decisions by construing these decisions as secondary design constraints/parameters that need to be worked within

4. If these constraints turn out to be incompatible with primary design constraints, this incompatibility needs to be brought to the attention of management and carefully explained.

C. Conflicts of Interest (governs the employment of agent expertise)

1. Conflicts of interest are bad because they raise the possibility of impairing an engineer’s judgment or the quality of her service

2. Need to avoid entering into any new conflicts of interest and to disclose any pre-existing conflicts

3. Need to avoid and disclose even potential conflicts that might appear to influence judgment

4. Types of relationships to disclose

a. personal

b. financial

c. professional

5. Potential conflicting interests

a. competition

b. government or quasi-government bodies involved in oversight or funding of engineering activities

c. suppliers

d. contractors