Response to case study scenario 1

Immediately my decision would be not to ignore this situation. I would firstly take action against my manager, as I believe their decision is wrong. I would then take action to resolve the situation. The IEEE Code of ethics states that we are “to accept responsibility in making decisions consistent with the safety, health and welfare of the public, and to disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment”, this immediately contradicts my manager’s decision. I understand that the decision was made due to the low number of erroneous drives, but as the drives are faulty in a way which could endanger the public, rather than in just a dysfunctional manner, then action does need to be taken.

I would confront my manager and give constructive criticism as to why I don’t agree with their decision. I would state my views, and if my manager does not agree with the resolution which I think would be most effective, or agree to find a better resolution, I would have to report my manager to their superior. This would be done via a meeting with the superior or a written letter of complaint to the superior, which I would state the views of both myself and my manager, to hopefully find a solution to the situation.

There are threatening matters such as potential fire hazards which could cause devastating effects to the consumer, who bought the electronic items. As this is the situation, I would demand that the whole batch of the 200 UBS flash drives to be recalled and free replacements to be dispatched. This does not seem very financially effective for the company, as the flash drives would have to be recalled and then a new batch released to the consumer free of charge. But this could potentially save the company from being lawfully charged if a serious fire were to take place with the flash drive being the cause, this resolution would also build respect for the company showing responsibility in their errors.

The batch of retrieved flash drives could be retested to have the dysfunctional drives filtered out allowing them to be resold, which would be financially beneficial for the company.
This resolution would stop the company from potential lawsuits, which would cause a large financial loss, and a discredited trust in the company. The consumer would not entail any financial loss and may remain a customer to the company.

If I decided to not take any action, my manager and I would be responsible for our decision, and we would be facing a disciplinary action or possibly redundancy from our positions in the company, if the potential risk of a fire from the item were to affect the company.

To stop this problem from occurring in the future, I would ensure that the company put procedures in place to stop items from being dispatched before the batch reports are reviewed by the test engineer and possibly another member of staff who has sufficient knowledge.