Specifications for a conflict: an engineering ethics case study

This case study is a fictionalized version of an incident witnessed by the first author while working for a steel manufacturing company. The case involves a conflict over the standards used by a steel company in deciding whether or not to ship specific coils of steel to their customer. The conflict ultimately boils down to a choice of loyalty for the steel mill engineer: loyalty to his company, his customer, or to those who will use the final product In the scenario presented a steel mill engineer has to decide whether to ship some coils of steel that are to be used in the cores of electrical motors by a major manufacturer of consumer appliances. He has received minimum strength specifications from the customer´s research and design center. The engineer also knows that the presses in the customer´s stamping plant cannot reliably handle steel at the required strength. The stamping plant operators have told him that if he keeps the steel hardness below a certain level, the steel can be reliably processed. The engineer seems to be faced with a dilemma: meeting the official specification or supplying steel that actually can be used to make the parts