Assignment 2 Engineering practice case study Description Marks out of Wtg(%) Due date Case study 2 Engineering practice 300 30.00 15 May 2017 Objectives This assignment addresses, in part, some of the following objectives for the course as outlined in the course specification: • review and analyse the role of engineers as managers • evaluate the characteristics of effective management control, including elements of operations and financial control • distinguish and discuss the social and legal responsibilities relating to product liability and professional negligence • determine appropriate methods of protecting intellectual property for specific situations • apply the concept of ethics, and select and justify suitable ethical guidelines for specific situations, using as a basis the Engineers Australia, Code of Ethics. Special Instructions This assignment is to be electronically submitted via Study desk assignment drop-box. Please submit as a generated PDF file or Word file. Do not submit zip files or scanned PDF files. File name for your assignment may follow the following format:- Student surname (in capitals)_first name_ENG3003_ASS 2_S1_2017 For example JONES_Bob_ENG3003_ASS 2_S1_2017 This is not critical but helps in sorting student submissions. CASE STUDY: KBC32 Melissa Mulders is a qualified chemical engineer who graduated from the Farbridge University two years ago. Melissa works for East Island Petrochemical Company. Since graduation she has been developing a research career and plans to return to university next year to undertake fulltime Doctor of Philosophy studies. Currently she works in the Research and Development Division of East Island Petrochemicals. The Research and Development Division has about 15 staff, including 5 industrial chemists, 3 chemical engineers and 4 technicians. The Division has about 40 research projects underway, mainly looking at either the use of petrochemical products in applications outside their traditional uses, or the use of additives in petroleum fuels. Most of the research is cutting edge technology and is highly confidential because of its commercial value. Melissa, along with all other staff, had to sign a Confidentiality Agreement when she first joined the Division. Annual “Intellectual Property Protection” seminars are held for all staff, and at these events the need for strict secrecy in the work is always emphasised. The Head of the Division is Walpole Snodgrass, a 44 year old divorcee. Walpole is a known womaniser and has come very close on several occasions to landing himself in trouble with sexual harassment charges. However, Walpole is also a very astute business operator when it comes to recruiting funds for his Division. He knows most of the senior managers in East Island Petrochemicals very well, and is also friendly with several of the directors of the company. He is an expert at extracting funds from senior management, and if he is unable to secure funds for a project in the normal way he is not averse to personally lobbying individual directors to support his case. Melissa does not have a lot to do with Walpole, for which she is thankful. The few occasions where she has had to discuss issues with him she has found him to be lecherous and he tried to grope her on one occasion when they were alone together. Melissa’s immediate supervisor is Brian Bunsen, an industrial chemist. Brian is in his early 50’s and has been with the company all his working life. He is fairly apathetic towards his job, and tends to do the minimum to keep the bosses happy. He feels the company has overlooked his talents and was particularly upset when Walpole was appointed Head of the Division five years ago. Walpole was brought in from another section of the company and Brian, as the most senior research scientist in the Division at that time, had expected to be named as Head. Brian now reports directly to Walpole and their relationship is often stormy. Apart from Melissa, the other people in Brian’s section are Roger “The Revhead” Robinson, Craig Cattler and Trudy Truesome. Roger is a chemical engineer who graduated from university 8 years ago. He is known as “The Revhead” because of his obsession with car drag racing. Roger has his own dragster which he races in drag meetings all around the state. He has confided to Melissa that although he finds the drag racing is fun and exciting, he also likes to be involved in it because of the prize money which he is personally able to keep, and the fact that the company vice-president, Bill Breezeway, is also keen on drag racing and this allows Roger to mix with the upper managers and directors of the company. Craig Cattler is a morose character who is always finding fault with the work of others. He is an industrial chemist with five years experience and Melissa suspects he has a drinking problem. Frequently, after lunch, he smells heavily of booze and often disappears into a quiet part of the laboratory, presumably to have a sleep. Trudy Truesome is the technician in the section and therefore assists Brian, Roger, Craig and Melissa in their research projects. She is in her mid-30s, is divorced, and has two small children (ages 7 and 4 years). Trudy is quite good at her job and is a willing worker, although she tends to be fairly stressed because of her family situation, and sometimes leaves critical work undone. Brian’s section of the Research and Development Division is concerned with research into fuel additives. One of the projects they have been working on for the last 12 months is the development of a new additive which will significantly increase the octane rating of normal automotive fuels. The additive has been coded as KBC32. The project has been going well and initial trials of KBC32 indicate that the product could be a lucrative money spinner for the company. Small quantities of KBC32 are stored in the laboratory, and each time some of it is used the user must record details in a register and sign their name. Roger has been suggesting to Melissa for some months that she should go along to one of the Saturday night drag meetings that he is involved in, so that she can see for herself what drag racing is about and how much fun it is. Melissa has resisted attending a drag meeting because she is not interested and has always thought how boring it all sounds. However one Saturday afternoon her friend Brooke Burton suggests that the two of them attend the drag meeting that night and Melissa agrees so that she finds out what drag racing is about. The drag meeting is of course quite crowded but eventually she spies Roger in the distance. She is somewhat surprised when she realises that the woman with Roger is Trudy and they are acting in a way which indicates that they are more than just friends. As she pushes her way through the crowd towards Roger she suddenly becomes aware that Roger and Trudy have been joined by Milton Steiner, head of Steiner Industries, a small but aggressive petrochemical research company which is a rival to East Island Petrochemicals. This stops her in her tracks and as she stands and watches she sees Roger handing to Milton a vial filled with bluish-green liquid. She is shocked and dismayed as she realises that the liquid looks to be KBC32. Her concern then turns to panic as she realises that the previous afternoon Trudy had asked her to procure and sign for 25ml of KBC32. Trudy had said that Roger needed the sample for some further testing, but could not leave what he was doing at that time to get the sample. Melissa had been fairly busy herself but in order to help Roger expedite his testing had signed out the liquid for him. If the liquid that Roger is now handing to Milton is KBC32, then it is probably the sample that Melissa has signed for! As she stands there stunned she sees Milton reach into his inner coat pocket and bring out a brown envelope which he hands to Roger. Identify and discuss the management and ethical issues involved in this case. What courses of action would be appropriate for Melissa to follow (starting immediately)? Notes: (i) Marks will be allocated in the following way: Identification and Discussion of Issues: Maximum 100 marks Identification of courses of action: Maximum 100 marks Written Communication: Maximum 100 marks Total Maximum 300 marks (ii) The case should have the following formal format: 1. Title page 2. Executive summary (brief summation of report) 3. Table of contents 4. Introduction (very brief overview) 5. Body of the analysis (answers to (i)) 6. List of references 7. Appendices (iii) The information contained in the Case Study is considered sufficient to adequately answer the question. If, however, you consider that certain assumptions are required, you may make these assumptions. Any assumptions made will need to be clearly stated. The possible penalty will be that if you make assumptions your mark will be downgraded, and it is likely that the more assumptions you make the greater will be the extent of the downgrading. (iv) The answer should be no more than 2000 words in total but there is no penalty associated with word count only that it is reported. The final section of the main body of the report should clearly identify the courses of action that Melissa should follow. This section will be a major section of the report on which technical content will be judged. The conclusions reached and action recommended, however, will need to be supported by the arguments presented in the previous sections of the report. This final section should be between 200 and 250 words in length. (v) The exact number of words in the report, and in the final section, should be reported on the Title Page. (vi) Written communication will be assessed in this assignment and will contribute to your overall Communications mark in the course ENG3003 Engineering Management. (vii) Please note that if plagiarism or cheating is detected in this assignment it will result in no marks for the assignment. Students should ensure they clearly understand the meaning of plagiarism and cheating. In particular, students should understand that while they may collaborate with other students on the conceptual ideas in their assignments, the final written report submitted by each student must be unique, and must not contain the written material of (a) any other student in the course, or (b) any other person without due acknowledgement. (viii) All sources of information used in the preparation of the report should be adequately referenced, and you will be expected to have consulted works outside the formal study materials. In particular you will need to have consulted the Code of Ethics, Engineers Australia to discern and discuss the ethical issues. (ix) If you wish to refer to legislation, you may only use such material from either Australia, or the country in which you reside while undertaking this course, and you must adequately reference such material.