Process Safety & Risk Management
Semester 1, 2018
Cornell Notes
Questions:
Prepare a document (presented
succinctly as dot point ideas) that
will be used to discuss in class the
underlying ethical concerns you
ought to bear in mind in order to
arrive at an appropriate decision
regarding the action you must
undertake.
Summary:
Topic: Food For Though Week 7 Name: Sahil Hariramani
Group: 15
Workshop: Friday, 10 am
Date: 20/04/2018
MAIN IDEAS/FINDINGS:
In a scenario when conflicted with interest and duties, it is essential
to list down all possible approaches to a situation so as to reach an
unbiased decision as to what course of action is to be taken. In this
situation:
 It is crucial to maintain the security of commercially sensitive
information.
 It should also be taken into consideration that the firm must
uphold the duty of protecting their employee’s jobs by
protecting commercial interests of the company.
 It is of paramount importance to take into consideration the
health and safety of employees and the surrounding
populace.
 The cause of the problem has to be identified, or another
course of action has to be taken: 1. Revert back to the old
technology. 2. Research for an alternate solution.
 Following the 4 fundamental principles may prove to be
difficult as to solve a situation like this, bribing a firm to leak
information might prove to be an easy way out but it is crucial
to avoid such deceptive acts, and to take steps to prevent
corrupt practices or professional misconduct, and declare
conflicts of interests.
 Societal and environmental impacts are to be considered with
each possible decision.
 Although competition between rivals exists, safety of the
employees and populace are to be considered.
 If the board of directors do not allow to release the
information, but a meeting with rival companies still does take
place, it is important to present information in such a way that
it does not break any rules set by the board of directors and
the information being displayed should not be misleading so
as to still get the accurate information across and still being
able to come to a solution to the problem at hand.
 If the meeting with rival companies does happen, and if
information is misleading, there would be a big blowback to
the company’s reputation and also may cost my job (job of the
European Regional Engineering Director).
 Reconfiguring all 11 chemical plant would be very expensive,
time consuming and will lead to a reduced production during
the maintenance period. Such a decision should only be taken
if all other alternate solution have more severe consequences
(more expensive, etc.), or also if there is no alternate solution
to the problem at hand.