. Nick started a new job at a structural engineering consulting firm. He has a target of
1800 hours of billable time for his first year of employment and is permitted to charge the balance of his time to training. Recently, Nick has had little project work assigned to him.
One of the project managers in the office asks Nick to work on a design-build project
with several sub-tasks including fieldwork, design work, and construction management.
The project is being billed to the client on a time and expense basis with a not to exceed the budget of $30,000 for fieldwork, $20,000 for design work, and $20,000 for construction management. Nick is assigned to perform independent fieldwork on the project.
However, the project manager indicates that his project is currently over budget, and he asks Nick to charge only half of his time to the project and the other half of his time to training. In addition, Nick is instructed to use the design work subtask when charging his time to the project instead of the fieldwork subtask.
Use a systematic analysis and decision-making process (Slides 11 & 12 in ethics lecture) to
decide the following:
Should Nick be required to only charge half of his time to the project? Should he be required to charge the other half of his time to training? When would it be appropriate to charge time to training instead of a project? How can he minimize conflict with the project manager?
Should Nick charge time to a subtask (i.e. design work instead of fieldwork) for which he is not performing work? When would this action be acceptable / not acceptable?
What cannons and sub cannons of the ASCE Code of Ethics provide guidance to the engineer in making these decisions? How do they apply?
- Compare section 37.81 of the PA Code identifying actions that represent misconduct to the
ASCE Code of Ethics. Identify Canons that correlate with each of the misconduct items listed in the 37.81 PA Code, use NA if you do not believe there is a corresponding cannon. You do not need to write out a formal response, only use the table below for your response.
PA 37.81 ASCE Cannon (1-8) PA 37.81 ASCE Cannon (1-8)
1 7
2 8
3 9
4 10
5 11
6
ŇŎYou are the engineer responsible for conducting a geotechnical investigation for a major tunnel
project. One of the things you must investigate is the presence or absence of explosive gases in the
rock, such as methane. You develop an investigation program which includes checking for gas at each
soil boring location as the boring is being drilled. This is done with a hand-held gas detector operated
by your field engineer.
The fieldwork includes 30 deep test borings and is completed without any apparent complications.
Methane is found in three (3) test borings and the rest appear to be free of explosive gas. As you review
the field records, you note that a replacement field engineer monitored the gas levels at five of the
borings. Since the records are not clear, you discuss the results with that field engineer. To your
dismay, you find that he/she did not know how to use the gas detector and that his readings cannot be
relied upon.
The client is expecting the report next week and to re-drill, the borings to obtain accurate gas data would take several weeks and cost several thousand dollars. zÈÁÔÄÏÙÏÕÄÏŕ
Describe your decision-making process, using a systematic analysis from the Ethics lecture slides.
Reference by Canon and Subsets the ASCE Code of Ethics.
Make sure to read and consider all subsets for each Canon and reference the subsets of the
Canons that apply for the course of action that you might take.