Response to case study scenario 1

As a junior engineer working in the safety testing group at a company that manufactures USB flash memory drives, my decision will be not to ignore the problem. Because I know that ignoring such problem will not solve it but instead of that it will only delay addressing and solving the existed problem. After conducting an analysis for the reason of weighing up the potential financial and legal consequences I realized that these failures might only be three out of two hundreds but they are enough to cause a fire hazard to the users of the drives. Ultimately, it might be a huge loss not just to the client but to other users and the consequences will bounce back to the manufacturing company.

Therefore I will act immediately to undertake some certain actions in accordance with the superiors’ managerial hierarchy. Starting to convince the supervisor that although this problem is truly found, it can be still handled and limited since I am fortunately the one who discovered it and not the client. Proposing my applicable plan of solutions which requires direct contact with the client to recall all the three failed USB flash memory drives by means of providing the client with the serial numbers of the faulty ones and to replace them free of charge by another three tested working ones. Explaining truly and clearly to the client that there was a mistake in the shipping led by giving them three failed USB flash memory drives coming within an order of two hundreds drives. Acknowledging them that there will be an investigation going on and a copy of which will be sent to them. At the same time appreciating the client’s cooperation in order to keep further business with them in the future.Moerover, Asking the supervisor to hold a meeting with the safety testing group to address the existed problem and take the necessary procedures such as conducting an investigation and a documentation of it to illustrate the actual reasons that led to posing this error. Especially that this error is estimated by 1.5% of the company manufacturing in this specific order.

If the supervisor kept insisting in ignoring the problem and rejecting all the proposed solutions, according to the company’s code of conduct I will inform and address the whole situation to higher managerial levels. By doing so I can protect myself from liability by making the mistake clear to my superiors so that I cannot be accused of deceiving my employers if a product does fail to work with the potential to be a fire hazard.

In addition to that, in a business world of high competitive companies in terms of offering the best quality of manufacturing and guaranteeing the products, the company cannot afford jeopardizing its reputation and creditability along with the customers’ confidence due to this unnecessary risk represented by unwanted legal and financial consequences.