Fluent Essays

This week we will again examine a real-life situation.  The event under examination will be the engineering failures related to the Boeing 737MAX airframe.Our examination will have three steps as follows: We will review the report provided in pdf format immediately below. We will undertake to discern the relevant stakeholders, relevant issues, and salient facts. We will use our knowledge to identify where leadership failed and suggest methodologies for avoiding a repetition of events and results. The below report provides both technical and non-technical data outlining the causes of the 737MAX design failure.  You may conduct research so as to have a better understanding of this case.  Your presentation, however, may only use that information presented in the report.  Based on this report alone, your assignment is to create a PowerPoint presentation as follows: Slide 1 - create an opening PowerPoint slide which presents your name, the date and a title for your presentation. The format of this slide is at your discretion.  Slide 2 - identify the individual or organization that you believe was most at fault for this design failure.  The format of this slide is at your discretion. Slide 3 & 4 - focusing solely on the individual or organization you identified in Step 2 (immediately  above), identify the primary cause which contributed to their defective design decisions.  This is your identified issue vis-a-vis the party identified in Step 1 (immediately above).  Frame this identified causality in the form of both a question (slide 3) and as a sentence (slide 4).  On each slide report if this causality is acute or chronic, an issue or a dilemma.  The format of the slide is at your discretion. Slide 5 - identify the facts which are relevant to the causality your identified in Step 2 (immediately above).  You are limited to four (4) simple sentences or bullets.  Investigate the meaning of simple sentence before undertaking this part of the exercise.  Please present these facts on a PowerPoint slide in the format you select. Slide 6 - recommend what punitive/corrective measures, if any, should be undertaken with regard to the individual or organizations you identified as most culpable for this defective design.  One item on the slide should be the recommendation.  One item must identify why you believe this action should be taken.  One item must rebut what you believe will the strongest argument against your proposed recommendation. Slide 7 - recommend what structure(s) should be put in place to avoid repetition of this deign failure.  At your discretion, your presentation on this slide can be in sentence or bullet format. Slide 8 - create a PowerPoint slide which solicits questions and input - the scope of your solicitation is up to you. Slide 9 - create a PowerPoint slide which lists references utilized - the case study is your only reference.Vol.:(0123456789) Science and Engineering Ethics (2020) 26:2957–2974 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-020-00252-y 1 3 O R I G I N A L R E S E A R C H/S C H O L A R S H I P The Boeing 737 MAX: Lessons for!Engineering Ethics Joseph!Herkert1!· Jason!Borenstein2!· Keith!Miller3 Received: 26 March 2020 / Accepted: 25 June 2020 / Published online: 10 July 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020 Abstract The crash of two 737 MAX passenger aircraft in late 2018 and early 2019, and sub- sequent grounding of the entire fleet of 737 MAX jets, turned a global spotlight on Boeing’s practices and culture. Explanations for the crashes include: design flaws within the MAX’s new flight control software system designed to prevent stalls; internal pressure to keep pace with Boeing’s chief competitor, Airbus; Boeing’s lack of transparency about the new software; and the lack of adequate monitoring of Boeing by the FAA, especially during the certification of the MAX and follow- ing the first crash. While these and other factors have been the subject of numerous government reports and investigative journalism articles, little to date has been writ- ten on the ethical significance of the accidents, in particular the ethical responsi- bilities of the engineers at Boeing and the FAA involved in designing and certifying the MAX. Lessons learned from this case include the need to strengthen the voice of engineers within large organizations. There is also the need for greater involve- ment of professional engineering societies in ethics-related activities and for broader focus on moral courage in engineering ethics education. Keywords Engineering ethics!· Airline safety!· Engineering design!· Corporate culture!· Regulation!· Software engineering Introduction In October 2018 and March 2019, Boeing 737 MAX passenger jets crashed minutes after takeo; these two accidents claimed nearly 350 lives. After the second inci- dent, all 737 MAX planes were grounded worldwide. The 737 MAX was an updated version of the 737 workhorse that first began flying in the 1960s. The crashes were * Joseph Herkert [email protected] 1 North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA 2 Georgia Institute of!Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA 3 University of!Missouri – St. Louis, St.!Louis, MO, USA 2958 J. Herkert et!al. 1 3 precipitated by a failure of an Angle of Attack (AOA) sensor and the subsequent activation of new flight control software, the Maneuvering Characteristics Aug- mentation System (MCAS). The MCAS software was intended to compensate for changes in the size and placement of the engines on the MAX as compared to prior versions of the 737. The existence of the software, designed to prevent a stall due to the reconfiguration of the engines, was not disclosed to pilots until after the first crash. Even after that tragic incident, pilots were not required to undergo simulation training on the 737 MAX. In this paper, we examine several aspects of the case, includ