Trouble in the truss construction shop critical thinking

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THE CONSTRUCTION SHOP ACCIDENT

Critical Thinking in Action: The Construction Shop Accident

Critical Thinking in Action: The Construction Shop Accident

Introduction

During the quality assurance testing of a newly developed truss, an employee in the truss construction company was hit by fragmented truss and sustained head injury. The employee went into a coma and was admitted at a local hospital (UMUC, n.d.). An investigation was conducted by the engineer, quality assurance manager, and safety officer and they reported the load testing went a little over the peak of load -bearing, however the truss was expected to hold extra load (UMUC, n.d.). The truss project has been advertise as an high commercial load bearing equipment and the company memos about the truss production only focused on the continuous production processes (UMUC, n.d.).

Employees were encouraged to continue producing more trusses at a lower load threshold so that they can meet their customer’s demands. The sales department will not tolerate any delay in shipping if the company does meet the project deadline. If any delay in production occurs, the company might lose some of their customers as it may also affect the revenue generation of the company (UMUC, n.d.). Employees from the engineering department questioned the condition of the truss and if it could hold higher loads as advertised. Also, an employee in the production line reveals the incident to the press and later got dismissed for poor performance (UMUC, n.d.). According to UMUC (n.d.) case study, the company issued a press statement assuring the public that they have taken safety measures to avoid any future occurrences. These are details known about the construction shop accident and the goal of this assessment is to critically review the conditions which led to the accident. It is also important to analyze how well the company uphold safety measures, ethical standard and how the company effectively communicate information with their employees and the general public.

Explanation of the Issue

The truss construction company has developed a new cost-effective truss which customer’s has already pre-ordered. It all goes wrong when the loaded truss breaks into fragments, leaving an operator in an induced coma for an undisclosed amount of time. The investigation of the incident confirm problem with the truss production because it cannot sustain heavy loads (UMUC, n.d.). This was the suspected reason why the truss test failed, although there is no concluding evidence to support this statement. Immediate effort was not made by the company to disclose the issue with the truss load to their customers. The company also fails to address safety concerns about the truss load failure with their employees.

The company’s attempt to shield the problem internally demonstrates a lack of ethical value .They are focused on producing truss to fulfill customer orders, while neglecting the fact that the truss are to be tested at a lower threshold when their customer expects truss that would sustain higher loads. Another issue evident in this case is regarding retaliation. A concerned employee leaks the details of the incident to the press and two weeks later the employee got terminated for poor performance (UMUC, n.d.). A research in behavioral ethics requires all individual and organization to weight the ideal value of any decision making to avoid an ethical dilemma (Baker, 2017). The company decision to terminate an employee who never had prior performance issues is questionable and there were no evidence of any corrective action given to allow the employee to improve on performance. Also, it is concerning that the company hasten to release a public statement until one of their employee leaked the incident, the company want the details of the incident hidden internally as they only assured the public of their workforce safety.

There are many issues to be considered. Has due diligence been done on the production technology to ensure the truss is safe when used on high load thresholds? Were employees properly trained on how to handle load testing on truss? Does the company have a health and safety protocol during quality assurance tests to protect their employees? This will be explored further to identify the root cause of the problem while giving further insights and recommendation towards a solution.

Analysis of Information

There are many unclear scenarios that need to be investigated in order to make a final decision to help implement a better course of action. The company might have blamed the line production employee that leaked the incident to the press because the worker was later fired. Let’s assumed the incident was never leaked to the press, it still does not eliminate the possibility of a lawsuit by the injured employee family members. The company will inevitably disclose the full investigation details of the accident and will need to give appropriate compensation to avoid a lawsuit, which can be costly and ultimately reduce the company’s revenue.

The safety of workers is a big concern in relation to this incident. It is not clear whether the workers used protective equipment such gloves, safety helmet, harness or safety goggle while operating the machines. The relationship between the employer and employees is not well documented. It is important to further investigate and examine the actions of the managers and quality assurance managers that initially investigated the incident. The assessment might reveal if proper responsibilities and work ethics were followed during the testing of the truss which was never mentioned. Also, maintenance history and logs of the production machines should be examined to ensure the operators and others line workers are well informed of proper processes and procedures of the operation. It is essential to following all procedures and safety measures of operating heavy machineries to maintain an accident-free work environment.

All incidents must be fully investigated to trace the cause of the accident and come up with ways to prevent future occurrences (Ames, Smith, Sanchez, Pyle, Ball, & Hawk, 2017). A work place accident must not be undermined to help ensure workers feel safe. Unfortunately, the injured employee could not come up with concrete information of how the incident happened; it may have yield meaningful information that may lead to better operational plans and procedures for the company. Faruch Habib felt obligated to leak the incident to the press because employees concerns were neglected which meant employees deemed the work environment as unsafe. There are no set company policies that protect employees against retaliation. Also, there is no solid evidence Faruch actual leaked the information. Besides, if Faruch was proven to have leaked the information to the press, his conduct should have been kept confidential to other co-workers. The company should have addressed Faruch behavior according to set disciplinary actions for breaking their privacy policy. Terminating Faurch for poor performance seems as false accusation because the performance issue was never apparent prior to the press leak.

The company continuous focus on the truss production to meet customer demands and to generate revenue in the midst of a bad incident may project a bad image that the company might never recover from. Assuring the public that the incident would not happen again is an important step in protecting the company’s reputation but foreseen issues with the truss load should have been mentioned. Issuing statements from the company’s perspective especially an apologetic and recovery strategy statement is a great idea. It may be a long road to restoring public confidence with the new truss produced but ethical issues will be eliminated.

Recommendations

The construction shop accident. Workers in the truss construction shop might need constant training and development because they work directly in the line of fire. All precautionary measures can be taken at the hiring stage; potential employees must be required to take a safety assessment and obtain certification to avoid fake or incomplete training claims. The company must build a health and safety regulation tailored to help workers especially in the construction department to be in according with the law. Whatever the case may be, any old heavy machinery used must be checked for safety, as well the effectiveness and efficiency of the final product (Pherson & Pherson, 2016). The consequences or penalties for non-compliance should be made know during this training sessions and signatures of training attendees should be taken to get legal proof of the safety awareness. In addition, an internal review of all past incidents prior to the incident in the construction shop must be identified. It will give the company a broad view of how issues were previously handled so they can come up with effective ways to avoid re-occurrences.

Conclusion

Incidence of employees’ injury while at work is received with different perception in the workplace. In some cases, employees might be blamed of their negligence and failure to follow safety measures which are put in place. However, employers may have fail to train their employees on protective measures which are related to working conditions. All incidences which occur while employees are working should be thoroughly investigated to determine the appropriate steps necessary to ensure there are little to no re-occurrence of similar issues. Managers may better exercise their responsibilities to properly communication information to address their workers concerns, which may build an open door policy relationship between employers and employees.

References

Ames, A., Smith, K. L., Sanchez, E. R., Pyle, L., Ball, T., & Hawk, W. J. (2017). Impact and persistence of ethical reasoning education on student learning: results from a module-based ethical reasoning educational program. International Journal of Ethics Education, 2(1), 77-96. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs40889-016-0031-x.pdf

Baker, D. F. (2017). Teaching empathy and ethical decision making in business schools. Journal of Management Education, 41(4) 575-598. https://doi.org/10.1177/1052562917699028

Pherson, K. H., & Pherson, R. H. (2016). Critical thinking for strategic intelligence (2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://bestebooks.us/?book=1506316883

UMUC (n.d.). Case Study – Trouble in the truss construction shop. Document posted in University of Maryland University College (UMUC) PRO 600, Section # 9044 Online Classroom archived at http://campus.umuc.edu