Response to case study scenario 1

As a junior engineer working for the safety testing group at a company that manufactures USB flash memory drives I would not ignore the problem despite the fact I was told to do so by my Supervisor, because its against the ethical standards of the Royal Academy of Engineering which states that “Professional Engineers should adopt the highest standards of professional conduct, openness, fairness and honesty”. Also, when it comes to issues of safety, 3 USB flash drives out of 200, is over 1 percent of the total number of USB delivered, the faulty products are not in any way negligible when it comes to the safety of lives and property.
My next call of action will be to follow the company’s reporting procedure when it comes to dealing with such issue. Since time is of essence and as a junior engineer, I may not have the final say in matters like this, I will have a meeting arranged again with my supervisor reminding him of the possible consequences of ignoring the observations from the test results. The consequences to the company may include possible legal action from our client if discovered, It could even be worse if any of such product gets into homes or institutions and causes fire, the cost will be enormous with legal actions of both civil and criminal nature from different parties, bad publicity for the company, loss of goodwill and could even lead to the total fold up of the company if legal actions and fines become too much. So it is better for us to recall the product, although it has its effects and present cost implication, but this cannot be compared to the possible disaster that might occur if the product is not recalled.
I will give him a very good example of a product that was recently recalled by it manufactures “Recall of Aqua fresh Milk Teeth Toothpaste (0 – 3Years) with Batch BN 388G.” As seen in the web address below; http://www.aquafresh.co.uk/index.cfm?event=SecretTitle&intCentralContentID=6718&CFID=1637607&CFTOKEN=68446851&jsessionid=f03083b2b8577278c19f531b79237525550
I will let him understand that it is the standard procedure to follow when situation like these occur.
Furthermore, in order not to allow the situation repeat itself I would recommend that the whole process of manufacturing should be looked into. Because what started off as a small error of just three USB drives, if left could materialise into a larger, longer-term problems.