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SEMESTER 1 2016/2017

COEB422 - ENGINEERS IN SOCIETY


GROUP PROJECT
A. INTRODUCTION
The main purpose of the group project is to manifest professionalism of the students as a future
engineer in Malaysia. The group project assignment in this course will be based on questions
1- 7 as listed in this document. These cases are meant to expose students on issues related in
the work-environment as well as decisions engineers will face. Working in groups also lends a
'real-world' flavor to the project, since most engineering decisions are made as part of a team.

Question 1
There are moral and ethical issues surrounding whistle blowing. The most obvious issues
relates to loyalty. Specifically, an employee owes a 'duty of loyalty' to their employer. In
one sense, whistle blowing may appear as an act of disloyalty.
Cary out a survey on how frequent whistle blowing is in Malaysia, and provide a relevant
example of a case study which involved whistle blowing successfully applied in Malaysia.
Discuss the needs for whistle blowing and the bases it is justified. How is the whistle blower
protected in Malaysia?

Question 2
You are an engineer and it is known that your project activities/plant production had
caused an adverse health, safety and/or environmental (HSE) impact. To improve the
HSE quality, you have to cease your project activities/plant production for a period,
resulting in inability to meet the schedule and targets.
How would you handle in a situation where there is a conflict between code of professional
conduct and commercial consideration? Discuss the situation. Give examples and critical
analysis of the condition.

Question 3
Making our homes and offices more energy efficient should be the first choice to mitigate
climate change, says a researcher. Energy efficiency is cheap, easy and effective when
compared to other options, such as renewable energy sources.
Discuss on what is energy efficiency and how it relates to sustainability and how the public can
play an important role in helping mitigate climate change with it. Do a survey on public
awareness of energy efficiency and evaluate case studies that relate to energy efficiency and a
sustainable future.

Question 4
A preventive workplace culture is a shared set of values, beliefs, attitudes, and ways of
behaving as a form of support to prevent harm to people at work. It emphasizes the
proactive management of hazards by eliminating them wherever practicable and, if this
is not possible, it then focuses on isolating and minimizing the hazards.
Referring to the above statement, do a survey on the public awareness of preventive workplace
culture. Then, provide relevant examples of case studies in the engineering industry in terms
of safety and health challenges which may include handling of engineering machinery,
vehicles, slips and trips, electricity and manual handling. Analyze related case studies and give
suggestions on how to prevent the hazards. Discuss your findings from legal, ethical and moral
point of view.
References: - Page 24, Strategy 2; Including Preventive Workplace Culture-Occupational Safety and Health
Master Plan for Malaysia 2015 (Ministry of Human Resources)

Question 5
Reverse engineering is the processes of extracting knowledge or design information from
anything man-made and re-producing based on the extracted information. Reverse
engineering is becoming more prominent in industry and often will involve intentional or
unintentional infringement of Intellectual Property rights. Graduate engineers and
Professional engineers directly involved in such practices are expected of ensuring that
prevailing IP in relation to the reverse engineering task is not infringed.
Perform an assessment of the current situation on challenges faced by engineering profession
in Malaysia in reverse engineering and undertake case studies which involves infringement of
prevailing IP rights. Propose, and discuss how professional bodies such IEM/BEM, the
government and the public could play a more effective role in ensuring that practicing
engineers knowledgeable to handle such situations.

Question 6
Engineering profession and business involves applying scientific law to solve technical
problems while ensuring the compliance to statutory law in the business process and
serving the society. In that notion, almost all engineers will come across situation that call
for critical understanding of the statutory law.
The purpose of this assignment is to explore the legal liability in engineering profession.
Perform case studies that implicates legal liability to engineering professional practice in
Malaysia. The case studies include a wide range of task undertaken by practicing engineer such
as product design & development, tender document development, contract work execution and
contract services.

Question 7
People in many parts of the world are facing societal problems such as poverty, famine,
war, political unrest, immorality, and other social and economic problems. As a result,
the people suffer and the countries were not able to progress economically and
technologically. How can engineers play an effective and positive role in eradicating these
societal problems?
Present case studies where engineers have used their influence and professional skills to
contribute towards making the world a better place for everybody, in particular communities
around the world who are directly affected by some of these social and economic problems.
Using these case studies as examples, suggest how engineers in Malaysia could emulate their
counterparts from developed countries to embark on similar programs in Malaysia.

B. REQUIREMENTS
1.

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5.

6.
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8.

9.

A group project that involves case studies based on the questions above shall be
performed by groups of 3 to 5 students. Each group will be responsible for planning
and leading a final oral presentation and report. Each group shall elect one project
leader.
Each group needs to register their group to the class lecturer by end of week 2 of the
semester.
For each question, the group must relate to case studies. Case studies must be original
i.e. not case studies that have been done before by your seniors in UNITEN. Students
can research for case studies from the newspapers, magazine, books, Internet,
interviews, etc. Anonymous names of persons, place, companies, etc. must be used to
respect and maintain confidentiality where required.
The groups should demonstrate the following in their work:
(a) That he has thought sufficiently about the role of the engineer in the society vis-vis his professional Code of Ethics/Code of Professional Conducts.
(b) That he can relate real case study in Malaysia/World to the question
(c) Able to communicate and able to develop management skills especially in human
relations, decision making, to lead and be a team advisor or coordinator
(d) Able to advocate and to champion the conclusions reached by his/her professional
competence through writing and to show by examples that ethics and high integrity
are fundamental in professional service.
(e) Address the relevant safety, sustainability, intellectual rights issues that arises in
the scope of the project.
Surveys can be conducted through questionnaires in getting views on the related issues.
Surveys also can be done through a thorough literature search and collecting evidences
on the ethical issues.
The assignment shall be concluded based on the analysis made.
Recommendations that correspond to the conclusions shall also be made. These shall
be in the form of actions that must be taken to rectify the problem(s), further
investigations into the case, etc.
Students are responsible for developing a group project report and group oral
presentation which engages the case, but are free to do so in creative ways. Students
are encouraged to be creative in their approach.
Groups are to include a minimum of three (3) minutes of meeting in the project report.
The minutes of meeting should be verified and signed by the group leader and should
illustrate the conduct of the leader and team in assigning and delivering the project. The
last minute of meeting should close all outstanding matters.

C. GROUP PROJECT MARKS (40%)


Report: 20%
Item
Content
Public Interest and Societal Impact
Exploring sustainability topic in report
Exploring Health & Safety issues in report
Team management (Minutes of Meeting)
Content, flow and references
TOTAL

Marks
40
30
10
10
5
5
100

Presentation: 20%
Item
Visual Appeal
Comprehension
Presentation Skills
Content
Preparedness/Participation/Group Dynamics
TOTAL

Marks
40
10
20
15
15
100

IMPORTANT!!!
Group Project requires the involvement of every member of the group. Any member that is
deemed to be non-participating can be dropped from the group. Anyone whose name have been
deleted from the final project report list or and during presentation is deemed to have dropped
from the group and no mark will be allocated to him/her.

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