Question 5:

In this technological age, the power of the engineers in shaping the society
and environment in all pervading and can profoundly affect the lives of
many members of the society. Enumerate, from your personal experience,
how largely positive impacts have accrued from the contributions of
engineers.

Answer:

Introduction

In the eyes of public, an engineer is a professional man who is of sufficient

training, expertise, and integrity as to be able to act with independence and
impartiality in his professional judgments to ensure trust and confidence of
public. Since ancient era to recent technological age, participation and
contribution of engineers have been seen in all ways of life. Involvement and
contributions of engineers are tremendous and playing important roles in
almost all aspects of human being life. Let us discuss from the following few
angles: -

1) HSE

Engineers in their profession, shall identify the safety and health risks in
their works, assess them and take steps to minimize and control these risks
in the work place and public arena. Engineers are involved in the search for
safer work places and products. These search for improved safety benefited
in reducing accidents and harm to the public.

Engineers are keenly aware that their work and recommendations can have a
very major impact on the environment that we live in. The very car that we
drive emits carbon dioxide that is causing warming of the atmosphere that
eventual could lead to massive environmental disasters later. Engineers are
at the very core of the research and development into ways and means to
reduce emissions by example of hybrid cars, cars running on hydrogen or
biofuel alternative.

Engineer has reduced greatly the negative impact from the sewerage
generated by the increasing population. The sewerage produced by human
being if not treated properly, will cause disastrous to the environment.
Imagine what is going to happen if the underground water and rivers are
contaminated by the sewerage. Therefore the engineer’s effort in
construction of the sewerage treatment plant has greatly impact in
preservation of environment.

2) Development

Engineers contributed very significantly to a country’s development from an

agricultural economy to one that includes manufacturing, communication
services and exploitation of the country’s natural resources like tin,
hydropower, oil and gas. They built the infrastructure and the tools
necessary for progress. Without road, highways, bridges, clean water supply,
electrical power supply, telephone and cell phone communication, we would
be living lives in jungle, where it will be dark at night and water is from
well.

Engineers build new townships and residential areas which create more jobs
opportunity to the adjacent areas. In the city, engineers build high rise
building which maximize land usages, provide a better and comfortable
working environment to increase quality & productivity of work. Engineers
also forecast & plan for future water demands & make proposals to solve
current water supply problems. Example: Proposal of building new water
treatment plants & reservoirs, or replacement of old pipelines to reduce loses
due to leakages and so on, all these were developed and built with the input
from engineers.

One of the engineer’s contributions that have major impact of the lives of
many members of society is in the Transportation sector. Better
transportation network such as PLUS, KESAS, ELITE, will boost many new
residential area & township development of suburban area. Upgrading of
road network and transportation system improve production and economy;
improve unity of nation and communication between state. People find
easier and more convenient in moving around from one place to anther
place. It only takes about 4 hours to travel from Penang to KL with North
South Highway. Rest & Recreation Area provide a place for road users to
rest and a new optional place for food, recreation and public services.

Engineers also help in providing good public transportation network which

enhance country image. Moving around in big city in Klang Valley using
Light Rail Transit and Monorail System can avoid the congestion of traffic,
overcome the problem of scarcity of car parks and shorten the period of time
to reach the destination. Engineers provide solution for limited space in a
city by efficiency of interchange, solve foundation and stability problem,
carry out value engineering for optimization of cost which make more
development for limited capital a nation has.

Beside this, the improvement in the telecommunication contributed by the

engineers in the field of electrical, electronic and computer engineering have
resulted to a better quality of lives. Satellite TV and cell phones together
with computer and internet have enabled us to communicate instantly and
anywhere on earth, so that we are now more informed than ever with the
information that can be searched for and accessed more readily. One can
communicate with their friends, family members, business partners or
clients at any place, and anytime.

The advancement in communication coupled with the better physical

communication such as transportation network have bring not just better
quality of life, but also have increased business activities, more decision can
be made daily, more people can be involved in business activities, more
income generated for company and individual, and the taxes collected by the
government as well.

3) Innovation on equipment and machine

The life expectancy of the population at large is getting longer and part of
the reason is the health service providers like hospital being equipped with
better tools and machines e.g. x-rays and scanners developed and built by
engineers. Medicine has been made more cheaply and widely available by
new techniques. Engineering practices and knowledge that have been put in
the design, application and production of hearing aids and other equipment
such as lasers for optometric correction is a significant contribution to the
better welfare of human being. The home is typically equipped with air-
conditioning and washing machine that engineers contributed in the
development and manufacturing so that we can live a more comfortable life
with more time for more productive and creative activities.
Conclusion

Engineer’s professional behavior require that they act faithfully to their

employer or clients, be competent in their field of work, gain required
technical know how and work experience, put the safety of the public in
profound regards, protect the environment, contribute to sustainable
development, make objective and truthful report to the public if needed,
avoid conflict of interest in the job and to act honorably and respectfully in
their professional conduct. The most important aspect is that any advice
given has to be fair, objective, impartial, and has to be in the best interest of
the public in general and client in particular, in order to instill public
confidence and trust. Engineers must be seen as a person with total integrity
in his work and no compromise to his professional judgment. These
behaviors generally spill over to the professional’s conduct in public and
thereby contributing to a better work place and to the society from the
services and products they have generated. All of these have resulted a
quantum leap in human civilization and all these cannot be happened
without engineers.