Ethics in Operations Group 1:

Ajay

Amit

Ashish

Aseem

Abhishek

Ethics “moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity”

“The moral correctness of specified conduct”

Characteristics of ethics Does it evolve over time ….?

Either you have it or not …?

Is it situation dependent ….?

Is it subjective ?

Operations Management-----Management of Resources that produce and deliver goods and services.

Performance Objectives•Quality•Speed•Dependability•Flexibility•Cost

5 Dimensions of CSR w.r.t. OM

Issues &Decisions• . Process technologies may be efficient from the operations point of view but may cause

pollution, the economic and social consequences of which are borne by society at large

• If a company decides to import some of its components from a Third World country, where wages are substantially cheaper, is this a good or a bad thing? …Differing perspectives of shareholders and trade unions.

• Ascertaining impacts of input, transformation and output costs with regard to CSR.• In voluntary dimensions, CXOs generally construe CSR as “ Necessary cost of doing

business”.

CSR ---Operations View * TRADE OFF * RISK MANAGEMENT

Environmental Ethics“rules of conduct or principles recognized in respect to treatment of our surroundings, especially natural environment”

• Is Humankind more important than other natural creatures?

• Do the immediate interests of living persons count more than the needs of unborn generations?

• Is pollution bad only if it interferes with human interests and concerns?

• Is nature here only to serve humans?

• Do animals, plants, and perhaps even rivers, ecosystems and biomes have ‘rights’?

Environmental Ethics

Air Pollution

• Smoke and CO2

Water Pollution

• Drainage to water bodies (ponds, rivers, sea, etc.)

D

Ethics in Design/Operation : Bhopal Gas Tragedy

Contributing factors

• Storing MIC in large tanks and filling beyond recommended levels

• Poor maintenance after the plant ceased MIC production at the end of 1984

• Failure of several safety systems due to poor maintenance

• Safety systems being switched off to save money

• Use of a more dangerous pesticide manufacturing method

• Undersized safety devices

Safety Ethics Vessel entry without Oxygen concentration measurement

Un-ethical practice

• Time pressure (alarm bypass)

• Money

• Reluctance to change (MOC)

• Lack of resources (Air pollution)

Operational Ethics

Quality ✔ Conformance to specificationsHow well a product or service meets the targets and tolerances determined by its designers.

✔ Fitness for useA definition of quality that evaluates how well the product performs for its intended use .

✔ Value for price paid Quality defined in terms of product or service usefulness for the price paid. ✔Support services Quality defined in terms of the support provided after the product or service is purchased.

✔Psychological criteriaA way of defining quality that focuses on judgmental evaluations of what constitutes product or service excellence.

My Personal Experience Protagonist: Me

Victim: My best Inspector Manjunath, meticulous in his job, well averse with standards and excellent inspection skills.

Case: Last week Of March, we had our worst year of production, reason we didn’t received our expected orders on time. So, it was the last time effort to save our faces with selling some spares to reach respectable turn-over figures.

We received some Mechanical Chassis last minute delivery from supplier, was an important part of spare order.

Time left 3 days (72 hours) ,

Screening Process time : 2 hours per chassis for vibrations available machines 2 + Thermal Screening over night (10 Hours), Capacity limit- 4 Chassis Per Day.

Total Chassis: 32

Catch: Additional General Manager was directly following this and has given all resources at my disposal but needs the Chassis to be shipped before 11:30 pm of March 31st.

My Personal Experience Quality as per conformance of required: Follow all processes , which means task can’t be completed

Quality as per Fitness of Use: Conduct sample based Thermal Screening analyze the results and do 100% Vibration test if both pass I can accept them as they were only mechanical chassis no electronics was used and even with respect to FMEA RPN (Risk Priority No.) was 20 which means its not not a very critical component and I put my method of screening and it with design engineer, he also gave me a green signal.

Government Inspectors: As all our products had to be inspected at various stages and have to be witnessed by Govt. Clearance agencies and after completion of the all activities only they will stamp the items and we can ship them. So for this case too we have to approach these Govt, Inspectors. They didn’t agreed but I being a Quality In-charge and Design Engineer Both explained to him he agreed. But asked us to take an official “Approved Deviation” from him. I prepared the same and we were ready for progress.

My Personal Experience Problem: Even after all this my Best Inspector Manjunath was not ready to pass this Chassis from his end saying the regular procedure is not followed. Without getting it cleared from a internal inspector I cannot proceed, so either I had removed Manjunath from the project and put Ramesh who was a more practical and experienced Inspector or tell AGM that I can’t complete the assign task and the whole SBU has to face the consequences of not delivering this important order?

Clash of Ethics:

1. If I remove Manjunath and put Ramesh it will send a wrong signal on Manjunath and may be he will think what’s the use of sticking to the principles as no body cares.

2. If I tell my AGM that I can’t do the consequences may be very severe for whole SBU & Organization our ratings may go down, his commitment to customer will also be broken as customer also needed the product urgently. I was confident enough that the improvisation made in the process will fasten the things without reducing the creditability.

What I Actually did I removed Manjunath off the project brought Ramesh on, but I explained everything to Manjunath and he was also took it in a positive way.

Finally the Order was Shipped by 11:00pm 31st March. And everyone was happy and even till date there is no problem from customers regarding that product.

was I Ethical in dealing through this situation? Well I was able to get a peaceful night sleep after this. So , I believe I cleared this test of ethics successfully. Its not the others opinion which matters, its what our conscious feels when it comes to ethics.

CONCLUSION