3 ms·

As reported in [1], it looks like he wasn't negligent - "DeGiorgio discussed the problem with Delphi...in February 2002, he had a choice: do nothing to fix it o

As reported in [1], it looks like he wasn't negligent - "DeGiorgio discussed the problem with Delphi...in February 2002, he had a choice: do nothing to fix it or change the switch and delay production." He certainly knew about the problem, but then decided to not fix it, to keep the production schedule on track. This is what makes me talk about management and deadlines. It's easy to blame it all on that single engineer - and I'm sure GM would love to do so - but isn't it possible the environment in which he worked made it difficult - even risky - to implement the right solution? Perhaps biased by some of my own experiences, I tend to favor the organisational failure explanation that other comments here describe quite well. Of course, everything he did later - the cover up, the lies - were attempts to cover up this one bad decision, and show that his ethics were less than stellar. [1]: http://fortune.com/2014/06/11/gm-switch-ray-degiorgio/ http://fortune.com/2014/06/11/gm-switch-ray-degiorgio/

zaroth 12y ago
I guess I see it differently. Management definitely failed to react properly once it became obvious the switch was faulty. I mean, apparently it came up in car reviews of all places. However, if you're the lead engineer on the switch, you have 23 years of experience on the job, it's your responsibility not to say "fuck it, just ship it." It's his signature on the paperwork. This wasn't a one-time one-day bad decision. This is a switch he worked on for three years. The right course of action is refuse to sign off on a faulty part, and then not try to conceal that the part was faulty once people start dying. Every project has schedule pressure, so if schedule pressure is somehow a defense then engineers are never responsible. I simply don't buy that. Management can decide they want to override the engineer and ship it anyway. GM can fire the guy for not agreeing to ship a faulty part, but then DeGiorgio could have been a whistle blower collecting 1/3rd of the damages against GM right now. I don't blame it singularly on the engineer. TFA says that GM’s Director of Product Investigations shut off the car with her knee, so this goes way beyond just the engineer. But I don't think that lets the engineer off the hook either. The engineer failed spectacularly, possibly criminally, and I hope he has to face a jury of his peers for this. Management also failed the same way, and if the investigators were in place to really push this, I'm sure the paper trail is there to at least indite some of these greedy complacent fools.
- joe_the_user 12y ago
  "However, if you're the lead engineer on the switch, you have 23 years of experience on the job, it's your responsibility not to say "fuck it, just ship it." It's his signature on the paperwork. This wasn't a one-time one-day bad decision. This is a switch he worked on for three years." I think you're still not getting the point. The way modern management works, and this seems to be nearly universal now, is that it leaves the professional still formally in charge and still liable but creates a situation where there is massive pressure to follow the schedule. GM can fire the guy for not agreeing to ship a faulty part, but then DeGiorgio could have been a whistle blower collecting 1/3rd of the damages against GM right now. Oh, you can't collect damages for fatal decision you prevented and then were fired for. Even more, the point bad engineering decisions is not that they are not guaranteed fatal but simply that they might be. If you dig your heals to prevent them, you get fired - the bad decision gets made but turns out not to be fatal but sequence of events is still fatal your career. Even if you warn about each one, you'll get fired 'cause management will see and won't want you covering your ass at every turn. They want you, silently making the decisions on the impossible schedule they set, to be the device they use to cover their asses instead. That is the point of the whole structure.
  - zaroth 12y ago
    Of course there's pressure to follow the schedule. There's also pressure not to kill people with sloppy work. Did you miss the part about fudging the part number, the lying, the cover-up? I don't understand your second point. Keep in mind that he could have signed off on the faulty part initially, and only after the first reports of a safety issue started trickling in he could have raised holy hell with management and if they did nothing then he could have become a whistleblower. 20% of the problem was initially failing to design a proper switch, but 80% of the problem was how DeGiorgio and GM overall behaved afterwards. The point is there is a strong regulatory framework which lets you fully and properly fuck your managers and live out a very happy life if they actually try to force you to cover up a mistake like this, but only if you have the ethics to do the right thing. Instead DeGiorgio allegedly spearheaded the cover-up personally. I've worked at a hardware startup verifying specifications and watched the level of process around BOM changes (it's off the charts compared to software change tracking). I'm really surprised it was even physically possible for DeGiorgio to make the hardware change without changing the part number. There was one time in my career an engineer fabricated test results because the schedule didn't allow enough time to properly run them. I discovered the falsified results and discovered it, and the engineer was ultimately fired. The next guy in the position worked within the system to properly communicate how long the tests took to run, and the result was that some less critical testing was skipped, and the rest got the appropriate resources to complete them. But you do not get to just lie and say everything was done just because the schedule was unrealistic. Schedules are always unrealistic.
slavik81 12y ago
Doesn't matter. As an engineer, you don't get to pass the blame like that. When you sign off on something, you are taking responsibility for it. Being able to tell your employer 'no' is fundamental requirement of being a professional engineer. It's the most important difference between a professional engineer and 'some guy who designs things'. If management was acting irresponsibly, they deserve blame as well, but that does not excuse his actions. My engineering association probably has somewhat different rules than his, but they're all going to be similar. From the handbook sitting beside my desk: ------------------------------------------------- Rules of Conduct: 1. Professional engineers[...] shall, in areas of practice, hold paramount the health, safety and welfare of the public, and have regard for the environment. .... A client's or employer's interests should be held in high regard. However, the following duties take precedence over the interests of the professionals' client or employer: - the duty to protect the safety of the Public; - the duty to the professions under the Code of Ethics; and - the duty to act fairly and justly to all parties when administering a contract on behalf of a client or employer. .... Having a Recommendation Overruled: - When a client or employer makes a decision that adversely affects the public interest and is contrary to the recommendation of the professional, the latter should inform the client or employer of the consequences of the decision. If the client or employer is unavailable or unresponsive, the professional should notify the appropriate regulatory authorities that have the ability to evaluate the concerns and the power to suspend activities until the technical issue is resolved. -------------------------------------------------
- crististm 12y ago
  That is one good handbook. Is it internal or public?
  - krallja 12y ago
    Here's a public one: http://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics http://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics
  - slavik81 12y ago
    Public. The APEGA Guideline for Ethical Practice: http://www.apega.ca/pdf/Guidelines/GuidelineEthical.pdf http://www.apega.ca/pdf/Guidelines/GuidelineEthical.pdf I should mention that it's not just something written down in a handbook, either. Accredited engineering programs are effectively required to contain an engineering ethics course, the purpose of which is to explain what the rules are and why they exist. Mostly by looking at incidents like this one. EDIT: Thanks, krallja. It seems that US national ethics guidelines are indeed very similar.

zaroth 12y ago

I guess I see it differently. Management definitely failed to react properly once it became obvious the switch was faulty. I mean, apparently it came up in car reviews of all places. However, if you're the lead engineer on the switch, you have 23 years of experience on the job, it's your responsibility not to say "fuck it, just ship it." It's his signature on the paperwork. This wasn't a one-time one-day bad decision. This is a switch he worked on for three years. The right course of action is refuse to sign off on a faulty part, and then not try to conceal that the part was faulty once people start dying. Every project has schedule pressure, so if schedule pressure is somehow a defense then engineers are never responsible. I simply don't buy that. Management can decide they want to override the engineer and ship it anyway. GM can fire the guy for not agreeing to ship a faulty part, but then DeGiorgio could have been a whistle blower collecting 1/3rd of the damages against GM right now. I don't blame it singularly on the engineer. TFA says that GM’s Director of Product Investigations shut off the car with her knee, so this goes way beyond just the engineer. But I don't think that lets the engineer off the hook either. The engineer failed spectacularly, possibly criminally, and I hope he has to face a jury of his peers for this. Management also failed the same way, and if the investigators were in place to really push this, I'm sure the paper trail is there to at least indite some of these greedy complacent fools.

joe_the_user 12y ago
"However, if you're the lead engineer on the switch, you have 23 years of experience on the job, it's your responsibility not to say "fuck it, just ship it." It's his signature on the paperwork. This wasn't a one-time one-day bad decision. This is a switch he worked on for three years." I think you're still not getting the point. The way modern management works, and this seems to be nearly universal now, is that it leaves the professional still formally in charge and still liable but creates a situation where there is massive pressure to follow the schedule. GM can fire the guy for not agreeing to ship a faulty part, but then DeGiorgio could have been a whistle blower collecting 1/3rd of the damages against GM right now. Oh, you can't collect damages for fatal decision you prevented and then were fired for. Even more, the point bad engineering decisions is not that they are not guaranteed fatal but simply that they might be. If you dig your heals to prevent them, you get fired - the bad decision gets made but turns out not to be fatal but sequence of events is still fatal your career. Even if you warn about each one, you'll get fired 'cause management will see and won't want you covering your ass at every turn. They want you, silently making the decisions on the impossible schedule they set, to be the device they use to cover their asses instead. That is the point of the whole structure.
- zaroth 12y ago
  Of course there's pressure to follow the schedule. There's also pressure not to kill people with sloppy work. Did you miss the part about fudging the part number, the lying, the cover-up? I don't understand your second point. Keep in mind that he could have signed off on the faulty part initially, and only after the first reports of a safety issue started trickling in he could have raised holy hell with management and if they did nothing then he could have become a whistleblower. 20% of the problem was initially failing to design a proper switch, but 80% of the problem was how DeGiorgio and GM overall behaved afterwards. The point is there is a strong regulatory framework which lets you fully and properly fuck your managers and live out a very happy life if they actually try to force you to cover up a mistake like this, but only if you have the ethics to do the right thing. Instead DeGiorgio allegedly spearheaded the cover-up personally. I've worked at a hardware startup verifying specifications and watched the level of process around BOM changes (it's off the charts compared to software change tracking). I'm really surprised it was even physically possible for DeGiorgio to make the hardware change without changing the part number. There was one time in my career an engineer fabricated test results because the schedule didn't allow enough time to properly run them. I discovered the falsified results and discovered it, and the engineer was ultimately fired. The next guy in the position worked within the system to properly communicate how long the tests took to run, and the result was that some less critical testing was skipped, and the rest got the appropriate resources to complete them. But you do not get to just lie and say everything was done just because the schedule was unrealistic. Schedules are always unrealistic.

slavik81 12y ago

Doesn't matter. As an engineer, you don't get to pass the blame like that. When you sign off on something, you are taking responsibility for it. Being able to tell your employer 'no' is fundamental requirement of being a professional engineer. It's the most important difference between a professional engineer and 'some guy who designs things'. If management was acting irresponsibly, they deserve blame as well, but that does not excuse his actions. My engineering association probably has somewhat different rules than his, but they're all going to be similar. From the handbook sitting beside my desk: ------------------------------------------------- Rules of Conduct: 1. Professional engineers[...] shall, in areas of practice, hold paramount the health, safety and welfare of the public, and have regard for the environment. .... A client's or employer's interests should be held in high regard. However, the following duties take precedence over the interests of the professionals' client or employer: - the duty to protect the safety of the Public; - the duty to the professions under the Code of Ethics; and - the duty to act fairly and justly to all parties when administering a contract on behalf of a client or employer. .... Having a Recommendation Overruled: - When a client or employer makes a decision that adversely affects the public interest and is contrary to the recommendation of the professional, the latter should inform the client or employer of the consequences of the decision. If the client or employer is unavailable or unresponsive, the professional should notify the appropriate regulatory authorities that have the ability to evaluate the concerns and the power to suspend activities until the technical issue is resolved. -------------------------------------------------

crististm 12y ago
That is one good handbook. Is it internal or public?
- krallja 12y ago
  Here's a public one: http://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics http://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics
- slavik81 12y ago
  Public. The APEGA Guideline for Ethical Practice: http://www.apega.ca/pdf/Guidelines/GuidelineEthical.pdf http://www.apega.ca/pdf/Guidelines/GuidelineEthical.pdf I should mention that it's not just something written down in a handbook, either. Accredited engineering programs are effectively required to contain an engineering ethics course, the purpose of which is to explain what the rules are and why they exist. Mostly by looking at incidents like this one. EDIT: Thanks, krallja. It seems that US national ethics guidelines are indeed very similar.