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VW Emissions Scandal & Speaking Out

A VW engineer has been sentenced to jail for his part in the scandal...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41053740

Although the court recognised that he was not the mastermind behind it they cited his failure to speak out as one of the reasons for imposing a harsher sentence. By my reckoning, if they are going to give this engineer a harsh sentence then a large number of other engineers and managers are also up for some significant jail time (don't forget VW are not the only car maker caught out by this). Don't forget that within just a single design/project team:

The initial requirements specification would have been signed off by multiple people.

The code would have likely been authored by more than one engineer.

The architecture and code would have been reviewed thoroughly and signed off by others who did not design or code it.

There would have been a final engineering sign off by the chief engineer and/or the technical director prior to release for production.

That is quite a number of people who could have spoken out but didn't (or they didn't do their jobs properly when reviewing and signing off)

My question is how many engineers (or non-engineers) wokring within a company have the confidence to speak out against something they feel is wrong or unethical without fear of retribution or even constructive dismissal?

I have so far only come across one employer (not directly automotive industry) that clearly has some explicit policies in place to encourage their people to feel that they can speak out and where retribution against an employee in any form is treated very seriously and could lead to dismissal. Clearly the emissions scandal is a wake up call for the automotive industry to change the way their companies operate. However, there is an opportunity for all companies with an engineering function to learn from this.

We all know that as engineers we have a duty to operate in an ethical manner but are we supported enough by engineering institutions globally to do that? What role can the engineering institutions and government play in helping to make it easier for engineers to speak up? Legal and government representation if an engineer is treated unfairly or even dismissed as a result of speaking out? What other tools could be made available to engineers by the engineering institutions (IET, Engineering Council, Royal Academy of Engineering, etc) to help them speak out more confidently without fear of retribution from their employer or line management?

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0 Former Community Member over 6 years ago
Jason. Great topic to discuss. From my initial research, I also strongly suspect, that the Grenfell tower incident may also be a failure of the Engineering discipline to ring the alarm bells. The Engineering community should be more vocal and speak out, but without any legal protection, you do run the severe risk of having no job at the end of the despite being correct and principled.

As a perspective in Canada, we have an act of law which lays out some fundamental rules. We as licensed Professional Engineers do have a 'duty to report', as we are primarily protecting public safety but we also have a secondary duty towards the client and the employer. It is only when we have exhausted attempts at trying to bring our concerns to the client and employer and no action has been taken and the safety issues remain, are we then legally obliged to 'Whistleblow'. We have had a good case here in Ottawa with an Engineer calling out developers on flood plains. I may try to find the link, but it's a very convoluted story. Our profession here calls for us to have a legal and ethics exam before obtaining a license and this is very good grounding for any new engineer to know before being drawn into the contractual minefields that await. Ironically the Canadian law books have numerous examples of British case law, so undoubtedly these could be equally applicable to the UK even now. My personal opinion is that all members should at least have a basic grounding and know their rights and obligations and of course as a pre-requisite we should know the IET has its own rules of conduct to follow. Perhaps we need to start a community of law and ethics? There is probably some great wise sages out there full of contractual knowledge and tales!

In response to your bullets
The initial requirements specification would have been signed off by multiple people. - Of course, traceability is very important and should be inherent in your quality system. At this point, the requests for alteration of the specification should have been challenged. As an Engineer, I would have insisted that any illegal changes be communicated in writing to trace back to that person who initiated this. A simple communication tool is to write back with the understanding of what has been requested with its flaws and request confirmation. I think in the case of a telephone call the Civil Engineers call this a CVI Confirmation of Verbal Instruction.... Great for those " well I didn't mean it that way when we discussed this!"

The code would have likely been authored by more than one engineer. No different to many products and those engineers will also likely be of differing abilities. But the authoring of that software should still meet the requirements whether right or wrong. These guys probably couldn't be held responsible especially if coding software modules and didn't know the overall system definition

The architecture and code would have been reviewed thoroughly and signed off by others who did not design or code it. Yes, indeed and a lot of software requires independence to get an improved oversight. From what I have regularly seen, is that the test specification is not always derived from the initial requirements specification, it becomes a sort of interpretive evolution of the design- This is always big trouble as you essentially test to a different set of requirements and don't test for failures in interpretation of the original requirements. Surprisingly this still happens and on some major projects.

There would have been a final engineering sign off by the chief engineer and/or the technical director prior to release for production. Absolutely correct, this is the person responsible, they are in control of the process, individuals and quality they are the ones that are culpable. If their engineering organisation has not been ethical then they are only to blame as they are in a position to challenge this. However, if they tried to address the organisations failings and were not successful then that blame should be with the directors

That is quite a number of people who could have spoken out but didn't (or they didn't do their jobs properly when reviewing and signing off) - So the defendant - James R Laing is called an Engineer so he should fall under the Michigan PE bye-laws. No idea how strong these are, but surprisingly I am not seeing anything being generated by MSPE chapters on his affiliation ( if indeed there is one). The actual lawsuit is Laing + co-conspirators.... a deal has been done to cooperate..... I suspect the legal authorities are not convinced this was just of Laing's doing and there perhaps is more to come on this..... allegedly. Very interesting one to follow. I may ask around and see what's happening over here.
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0 Former Community Member over 6 years ago
Jason. Great topic to discuss. From my initial research, I also strongly suspect, that the Grenfell tower incident may also be a failure of the Engineering discipline to ring the alarm bells. The Engineering community should be more vocal and speak out, but without any legal protection, you do run the severe risk of having no job at the end of the despite being correct and principled.

As a perspective in Canada, we have an act of law which lays out some fundamental rules. We as licensed Professional Engineers do have a 'duty to report', as we are primarily protecting public safety but we also have a secondary duty towards the client and the employer. It is only when we have exhausted attempts at trying to bring our concerns to the client and employer and no action has been taken and the safety issues remain, are we then legally obliged to 'Whistleblow'. We have had a good case here in Ottawa with an Engineer calling out developers on flood plains. I may try to find the link, but it's a very convoluted story. Our profession here calls for us to have a legal and ethics exam before obtaining a license and this is very good grounding for any new engineer to know before being drawn into the contractual minefields that await. Ironically the Canadian law books have numerous examples of British case law, so undoubtedly these could be equally applicable to the UK even now. My personal opinion is that all members should at least have a basic grounding and know their rights and obligations and of course as a pre-requisite we should know the IET has its own rules of conduct to follow. Perhaps we need to start a community of law and ethics? There is probably some great wise sages out there full of contractual knowledge and tales!

In response to your bullets
The initial requirements specification would have been signed off by multiple people. - Of course, traceability is very important and should be inherent in your quality system. At this point, the requests for alteration of the specification should have been challenged. As an Engineer, I would have insisted that any illegal changes be communicated in writing to trace back to that person who initiated this. A simple communication tool is to write back with the understanding of what has been requested with its flaws and request confirmation. I think in the case of a telephone call the Civil Engineers call this a CVI Confirmation of Verbal Instruction.... Great for those " well I didn't mean it that way when we discussed this!"

The code would have likely been authored by more than one engineer. No different to many products and those engineers will also likely be of differing abilities. But the authoring of that software should still meet the requirements whether right or wrong. These guys probably couldn't be held responsible especially if coding software modules and didn't know the overall system definition

The architecture and code would have been reviewed thoroughly and signed off by others who did not design or code it. Yes, indeed and a lot of software requires independence to get an improved oversight. From what I have regularly seen, is that the test specification is not always derived from the initial requirements specification, it becomes a sort of interpretive evolution of the design- This is always big trouble as you essentially test to a different set of requirements and don't test for failures in interpretation of the original requirements. Surprisingly this still happens and on some major projects.

There would have been a final engineering sign off by the chief engineer and/or the technical director prior to release for production. Absolutely correct, this is the person responsible, they are in control of the process, individuals and quality they are the ones that are culpable. If their engineering organisation has not been ethical then they are only to blame as they are in a position to challenge this. However, if they tried to address the organisations failings and were not successful then that blame should be with the directors

That is quite a number of people who could have spoken out but didn't (or they didn't do their jobs properly when reviewing and signing off) - So the defendant - James R Laing is called an Engineer so he should fall under the Michigan PE bye-laws. No idea how strong these are, but surprisingly I am not seeing anything being generated by MSPE chapters on his affiliation ( if indeed there is one). The actual lawsuit is Laing + co-conspirators.... a deal has been done to cooperate..... I suspect the legal authorities are not convinced this was just of Laing's doing and there perhaps is more to come on this..... allegedly. Very interesting one to follow. I may ask around and see what's happening over here.
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VW Emissions Scandal & Speaking Out

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