ENEG20001 Australian Engineering Practice: Skills and Ethics

This essay provides a reflection on Australian engineering practice, covering historical impacts, ethical considerations, and essential skills for engineers. It discusses the positive contributions of engineers like Robert Stephenson, analyzing his technical skills and innovative decisions in railway engineering. The essay also examines engineering disasters, such as the Hyatt Regency Kansas City walkway collapse, highlighting the importance of risk management and ethical design practices. Furthermore, it delves into engineering professionalism in the Australian context, emphasizing the need for skills beyond technical expertise, including communication, teamwork, and emotional intelligence. The essay also touches upon the Engineers Australia Stage 1 Competencies and personal ethical considerations in challenging workplace scenarios.

Running head: AUSTARLIAN ENGINEERING PRACTICE
AUSTRALIAN ENGINEERING PRACTICE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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The historical impact of engineering on society
Robert Stephenson valued and built the achievements of his father, George Stephenson.
His thinking allowed the important expansion of the railways during the ‘railway mania’ in the
mid of the 19th century. His expertise field was both in the civil and mechanical engineering
field. He had established the new concept of the railway, which was first developed in the
country and was then exported to the rest of the world. In 1823, George Stephenson established
the Robert Stephenson & CO and Robert being the firm’s managing partner he initiated the first
locomotive works in the world on foreseeing the demand for steam engines in the railway. While
working on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, Robert Stephenson strongly supported the use
of travelling except for the use of the fixed engines on the line and that too without the support of
the company directors and his father for the fixed arrangement. Robert still found the proposal is
under debate, then under his guidance, Robert Stephenson & Co entered the locomotive Rocket
in to the Rainhill Trails in 1829. It won and convinced the world that locomotives are the future
of the new railway. Then, the improvements in Rocket’s design is continued, this showed the
excellent skills also of taking an innovative decision apart from the technical skills of him. In
addition to the technical skills, it was his initiation and decision to develop the locomotives for
the new railway. He also introduced the multi-tabular boiler for providing the template for the
steam locomotives, and it was built worldwide in the 19th and 20th century.
The engineering project had gone severely wrong and led to the disaster that is on 17 July
1981, there were more than 100 people died, and more than 200 people were injured when both
the walkways collapsed within the Hyatt Regency Kansas City hotel. The tea dance was held at
the hotel’s lobby when the walkways fell. During the construction, a design flaw was identified,
and the contractors decided to change the design that resulted in the double loading of the

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connection between the atrium roof and the fourth-floor bridge. The support beams and tie rods
had been designed for holding the weight of each walkway. The new design changed, and it has
many areas that can critically undermine the safety of the entire structure. This was found out
that the tie rod designs were responsible for this disaster and the structural designer of the rescue
team found it a serious departure from the initial design. Walkways were there to be suspended
from the atrium on the rods, but this had been changed. The manufacturer of rod found that the
tie rods to be threaded along the full length and this could be damaged during the walkway
hosting. They changed the design that is one set connecting the fourth floor to the atrium roof
and the other set for the second floor connecting to the fourth floor. This lead to the disaster as
there was a need of fourth-floor beams supporting both the fourth floor and underlying the
second-floor walkways. This can be handled if, during the original design change, the designer
needs to be more conscious while making the new design. Whenever there is a change in the
designing process that need to be justified and informed to all the members. The reluctant
behaviour and not sharing the proper information lead to this massive disaster (Berke, Bentur
and Diamond, 2014).
Engineering professionalism and ethics in the Australian context
Engineers not only deals with the tools and machines they also have to deal with the
customers, management, suppliers and with the colleagues and also managing teams. The skills
that the engineers need to have along with the technical skills are the ability to think logically
and also in a creative manner (Hill 2013). Effective communication is always beneficial for
engineers while maintaining teamwork. The flexibility and the emotional intelligence are also
required for the engineers. The new competencies that the engineers are facing are the
breakdown problem and making the complex plans (Basart and Serra 2013). The changing of

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leadership also creates a problem by supporting the need for the change and the change of
champions. In the entry level of the engineers, they face problems like taking the single action,
and at the mastery level they face problems like the influence of the complex strategies and faces
lack of teamwork (Hacker 2017). The engineering organizations need to encourage open debate
in the office culture, building commitment to the management decisions and hiring for humanity
need to be included and also need to drive the customer empathy to the team and encouraging
exploration of the new technologies. This features will bring improvement to the organization
(Jones, Michelfelder and Nair 2017).
The code of ethics I think it is important for the engineers to follow are:
 Engineers need to hold the paramount like the safety, health and welfare of the public.
 Engineers need to perform the service in the areas of their competencies.
 They also need to issue the public statements objectively and truthfully.
 They need to act for each employer, faithful agents and the trustees.
 They should avoid the deceptive acts, and they should be guided in all the relations with
the highest priority and integrity (Beever and Brightman 2016).
 They should strive to serve the public interest, should avoid the conduct or practice,
which deceives the public and should not disclose any consent and the confidential
information regarding the business affairs or any technical process.
 They should not be influenced by any conflicting interest in their professional duties
(Harris Jr et al. 2013 ).
If I am in such a situation where my boss asked me to lie for the sake of the company,
then I need first to identify whether telling that lie will create harm to anybody or not. If not so,
and by telling a lie I can save my company from any hard situation then I will say accordingly. If

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any customer behaves unethically in my first attempt I will try to make him understand and will
ask to cooperate if then also he behaves in the same manner then I will not entertain him or her
as entertaining that particular customer can create an effect on my company’s reputation and
business operation.

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References
Basart, J.M. and Serra, M., 2013. Engineering ethics beyond engineers’ ethics. Science and
Engineering Ethics, 19(1), pp.179-187.
Beever, J. and Brightman, A.O., 2016. Reflexive principlism as an effective approach for
developing ethical reasoning in engineering. Science and engineering ethics, 22(1), pp.275-291.
Berke, N., Bentur, A. and Diamond, S., 2014. Steel corrosion in concrete: fundamentals and
civil engineering practice. CRC Press.
Gürses, S. and del Alamo, J.M., 2016. Privacy engineering: Shaping an emerging field of
research and practice. IEEE Security & Privacy, 14(2), pp.40-46.
Hacker, S., 2017. Pleasure, power and technology: Some tales of gender, engineering, and the
cooperative workplace. Routledge.
Harris Jr, C.E., Pritchard, M.S., Rabins, M.J., James, R. and Englehardt, E., 2013. Engineering
ethics: Concepts and cases. Cengage Learning.
Hill, D., 2013. A history of engineering in classical and medieval times. Routledge.
Jones, S.A., Michelfelder, D. and Nair, I., 2017. Engineering managers and sustainable systems:
the need for and challenges of using an ethical framework for transformative leadership. Journal
of Cleaner Production, 140, pp.205-212.