5 ms·
Expected use and desired tolerance is a management decision. Safety is still on engineers.
by hiddencost 2y ago
Expected use and desired tolerance is a management decision. Safety is still on engineers.
- toss1 2y agoIsn't the point what level of safety? If management intends expected use to be a low-load-quick-and-dirty-temporary-use prototype to be delivered in days, it seems the engineers are not doing their job if they calibrate their safety process to a heavy-duty-life-critical application. And vice versa. Making the decision about the levels of use, durability, reuse-ability, scalability, AND RISK is all management. Implementing those decisions as decided by management is on engineering. It is not on engineering to fix a bad-trade-off management decision beyond what is reasonably possible (if you can, great, but go look to work someplace less exploitative).
- scott_w 2y agoWhat you wrote didn’t really refute the point you’re replying to.
- toss1 2y agoWhat you wrote didn’t really refute my point either. If management allocates time and resources only for a quick-&-dirty prototype not for public use, then releases it to the public with bad consequences, they will definitely ask the engineers about it. If the engineers properly covered their paper trail, i.e., kept receipts for when management refused their requests for resources to build-in greater safety, then engineering will be not responsible. Ethically, this is the correct model. But if he & you are saying that management will try to exploit engineering and then blame failures on engineering when it was really bad management, yup, you should expect that kind of ethical failure from management. Yes, there are exceptions, but the structure definitely encourages such unethical management behaviors.