Safety Standards:
Professor Albert Flores of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute described some of the results of a study sponsored by the National Science Foundation. This study explored "the ways in which the dosign activities of engineers are structured by their employers to insure that the end product meets acceptable standards of safety." Flores and his colleagues at R.P.I. interviewed nearly seventy-five engineers from engineering organizations with established reputations in their respective fields for placing a high premium on safety. They also surveyed four hundred and fifty other engineers at these same organizations.

In his presentation Flores described four significant institutional mechanisms for including safety considerations in the design process: safety reviews, safety officials, safety regulations and standards, and the "safety atmosphere." In evaluating the import of this study, Flores said: "Although it is difficult to assess the degree which [the above] mechanisms actually influenced design engineering practices, the following results may provide some concrete idea as to engineers' perception of their influence."

According to Flores, the safety review procedure constitutes the most important organizational influence on design for safety. Such reviews "function to identify and evaluate the hazards associated with a particular design, including the type and quality of materials used to manufacture it, the safeguards it requires, the energy sources needed to operate it, and any other environmental factors affecting its safe use." Flores noted that safety reviews typically occur at the initial conceptual development stage when a product is being considered for manufacture, as well as during the preliminary design stage which occurs later. Even after the preliminary design phase there may also be several other safety reviews before the final design review just prior to initiating full production.

The second institutional mechanism for putting safety considerations into the design process Flores identified was the safety engineer. Safety engineers, he said, "are . . . charged with directing and enforcing an organization's policies in matters affecting product safety. The safety unit is usually an independent group from the engineering development section and has reporting responsibilities to executives supervising engineering. This independence allows them to pursue safety concerns which they believe are legitimate without undue influence from engineering management, who may be faced with cost and schedule pressures." Flores reported that although design engineers acknowledge the valuable contribution of safety engineers to the design process, many complained that safety officials tended to take an excessively conservative approach.

Flores next discussed internal safety standards and regulations "which safety officials are responsible for enforcing and which form the basis of all design safety reviews." Such standards, Flores noted, generally fall into two categories. "Performance standards . . . specify performance levels which the end product should achieve; and specification standards specify, in detail, for example the type of materials which should be used, the dimensions and clearances which should be maintained, the energy sources that allow for safe operations, and any other safeguards that may be required." Flores said that in virtue of the greater scope of discretion they allow to engineers, most engineers prefer performance standards. Flores also noted, however, that organizations frequently supplement such standards with internal manuals that in corporate the relevant government or industry standards tailored to the needs of the organization in regard to a specific project.

Finally, Flores said that the "safety atmosphere" of an organization fostered by the demonstrated attitude which engineering supervisors, management, and safety officials take toward safety has an influence that permeates each of the other major factors. Where the commitment to safety is genuine, "the design practices of engineers will exhibit conscientious concern for product safety."

Ombudsmen:
Normand M. Laurendeau, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University, advanced a case for a corporate ombudsmen division in companies that do engineering work. Laurendeau said that " . . .the wise control of technology should begin where technology is developed . .. . in industry. If the corporation encourages responsible action, some engineer within the corporation will undoubtedly perceive the problem before it arises and act accordingly." To promote such activity, Laurendeau proposed "a committee of ombudsmen hired by the corporation for the express purpose of acting as consumer advocate and responding to concerns voiced by individual engineers." His paper outlined the make-up, place, and duties of such a committee within the corporation. It also enunciated grounds for corporations to support an ombudsman group financially and morally.

Laurendeau maintained that effective operation of an ombudsman committee would require that it have three basic characteristics: independence, representation, and accessibility. To maintain independence, Laurendeau proposed that the committee consist of a group of full time engineers versed in technology assessment and public policy. The group, however, should also include engineers from various divisions of the company who would serve on a rotating basis. The rotating members of the group could supply new insights "that can only come from hands on experience at the division level." The permanent members would have as their basic function to assert and maintain the independence of the ombudsman group. To foster such independence, Laurendeau further noted that the group must be accessible to decision making centers within the corporation.

Laurendeau conceived of the primary duty of an ombudsman division as providing "corporate executives with feedback based on public advocacy and the concern of individual engineers within the corporation." Through the ombudsman committee, he said, "potential whistleblowers will be able to express opinions on such issues as product reliability, waste disposal, or occupational safety. The ombudsman division will then be responsible for assessing social benefits and risks associated with suggested changes in product design and construction."

Laurendeau noted that to perform its primary duties, the ombudsman division must both reflect public opinion and be capable of defining 'acceptable risk.' With respect to reflecting public opinion, he said that the ombudsman division can only do this, "if its members are encouraged to identify with the public more than with the corporation." Such will obtain, he believed, however, only if the members of the ombudsman division are "given leeway to assume the role of professional whistieblowers." As for defining `acceptable risk,' Laurendeau said that such a definition in particular contexts "must be based on reasonableness, social benefits, adverse effects, equity in the distribution of risks, benefits, and costs, and whether the risk is voluntary or involuntary. . Proper decisions [in this regard] . . . rely more on values than facts."

Laurendeau maintained that corporations have three major incentives for supporting an ombudsman division: "(t) special concern will command respect from both consumers and public officials. (2) treatment of engineers as responsible professionals will enhance employee loyalty, and (3) anticipation of public responses will yield desirable products without costly litigation." All three of these benefits, Laurendeau noted, "are consistent with the corporation's requirements for profitability and survival in the marketplace."

Laurendeau, however, raised the question of whether corporate ombudsmen could generally maintain sufficient power and independence within a corporation to carry out their essential functions. Will not many corporations, he asked, treat the ombudsman division as a "public relations gimmick"?

To deal with this latter problem, Laurendeau proposed that corporate ombudsmen form a national association under the auspices of a single engineering society. Such a national association, he maintained, "is necessary to produce the center of power needed to contest corporations that neglect social responsibility, manipulate ombudsmen, or disavow engineering professionalism . . . . A potential tactic is to censure companies that do not comply with policies recommended by a national board representing all engineering societies. Properly publicized, a censure procedure could strongly affect the ability of a corporation to hire new engineering talent. The ombudsman division and associated censure mechanisms," he believed, "could be harbingers of a new era in which engineers identify less with their employers and more with their profession."

Organizational Power Struggles:
Richard J. Boland Jr., Professor of Accountancy at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, argued that commitment to an outmoded rational-bureaucratic conception of large business organizations stands in the way of perceiving substantial opportunities for engineers to assert themselves as an important force in the determination of corporate policy.

Boland observed that according to a rational-bureaucratic conception, "the organization is pictured as purposive, directed from the top by a series of commands to subordinates. It is imagined that functional units are coordinated in a machinelike fashion . . . the organization is assumed to be guided by planning. Planning is a forward looking, intentional process in which goals are defined, alternatives are examined and courses of action are chosen based on the highest return to the organization."

Boland contended that such a picture, however deeply entrenched is fundamentally mistaken. Citing recent studies in organizational theory for support, he put forward a very different point of view. Large business organizations, though rationally organized in theory, consist in practice of diverse factions which contend for power with one another. In such a struggle Boland maintained. "groups have power not because their understanding of the organization is coherent, complete or wise, but because they control a resource seen as critical to its continued functioning. Control over funds, markets, labor, supplies or information can all be sources of power, depending on the nature of the environment." Boland expressed the view that "power is not evil and the fact that organizations have multiple competing centers is not bad. Rather, the responsible exercise of power by various groups within the organization is part of a necessary process of aligning the organization with the appropriate factors, resources and problems of its environment-including the technical, legal, economic and social aspects."

Boland asserted that "engineering, with its widespread impact on the critical needs of innovation, productivity and regulatory requirements, has control over resources that should be an important base of power. In addition," he noted, "engineers have other characteristics that tend to enhance power in organizations. They are professionals with their own language; experts with control over secrets useful to others. The work of an engineer is hard to evaluate, especially by the uninitiated. Finally, in one form or another engineers have control over information that others in the organization need, and they are in a position to create a sense of obligation in others for sharing that information."

Boland suggested several steps engineers in organizations can take to develop and exercise power effectively. "First," he said. "they must establish themselves as participants in as wide a range of activities within the organization as possible. They should increasingly insist on the use of teams in which engineers can play key liaison roles linking different departments in a common problem focus." Boland also advocated that "engineers . . . work to develop an effective network of peer communication throughout the organization, avoiding physical isolation from other engineers and creating opportunities for meeting on a regular basis to discuss common concerns, and develop positions with respect to them." Finally, he said, "they must learn to use their unique control over the critical resources of information and innovation to establish their agenda and concerns as an integral part of the organization's dialogue on its problems." At times, Boland said, "this might require holding back certain projects or analyses. At other times it may mean sharing their influence to support another group who will later be in a position to reciprocate.

Boland concluded by reiterating his primary thesis: "The engineer cannot retreat behind the shield of management decision making. What we imagine to be a rational, coherent, comprehensive management process is a shifting, dynamic power struggle between diverse, partial and incoherent centers of power . . . . Quite simply, the engineer, as a participant in the power struggle, is responsible for creating it."

Commentary:
Professor David Noble of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology served as commentator on the papers at the Friday afternoon session. He criticized the papers by Flores, Laurendeau, and Boland as all highly unrealistic insofar as they assume that significant measures to promote safety in product design can be effected while keeping capitalism basically intact. Against such a view, Noble contended the incompatibility of capitalism not only with safety, but also with peace and humane living generally. For this reason he maintained that far more radical steps must be taken, steps which the engineering profession cannot take alone. Instead. Noble insisted, problems of safety in product design can only be addressed meaningfully in a broader context wherein engineers participate as citizens in cooperation with other citizens.

Noble called for a movement to radically restructure both the engineering profession and the economy. He said the former must abandon its essentially elitist notion of professionalism, and the latter must be reorganized in such a way as to eliminate its capitalistic and militaristic imperatives. Noble proposed three elements of a program to achieve these goals. First, engineers should unionize. Second, engineering education should be changed so as to allow students more time to reflect upon social and political issues. Third, engineers must enter into alliance with other organizations, such as unions and disarmament groups. Noble said that he did not inherently oppose the kinds of measures for product safety advocated by Flores, Laurendeau, and Boland. He insisted, however, that they would only be effective if undertaken within the broader context he described in his comments.