Engineering Ethics

Anonymous Industrial Engineering Ethics Cases 191

WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW?

This happened my first or second week at the company. I worked there

for 4 years. I left in search of a better work environment after many dis-

agreements with my direct supervisor.

CASE 3: ELECTRICAL ENGINEER

Ethics Dilemma Scorecard

Public Safety & Welfare

Data Integrity & Representation



Trade Secrets & Industrial Espionage

Gift Giving & Bribery

Principle of Informed Consent

Conflict of Interest

Accountability to Clients & Customers



Fair Treatment

TELL US YOUR STORY

In 1974, I was working for Hewlett-Packard and wrote all the code for

the HP 35 calculator. Unfortunately, my code had a round-off error, which

propagated into the carry digit, which was not saved. It could be repro-

duced by calculating e

ln2.02

. Instead of calculating 2.02, the result was 1.01.

At the time the bug was discovered, 25,000 calculators had been shipped.

I could fix the bug by changing out one of three read only memories.

However, by the time the fix would be ready, 100,000 calculators would

have been shipped.

A meeting was called that included engineers, salespeople, marketing,

and manufacturing. When someone suggested that “Suppose we don’t

tell anybody,” my friend heard founder David Packard’s pencil break.

Mr. Packard immediately stated, “Who said that? As long as my name is

on the building, we are always going to be upfront with our customers.”

We decided to send our customers a description of the circumstances

that created the bug, and let them know that when a replacement was

available, they would be able to receive a replacement if requested. Only

25% of the customers ever requested the new calculator.

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