Case Study 4 – Quality Assurance Case
A small software company is working on an integrated inventory control system for a very large national shoe manufacturer. The system will gather sales information daily from shoe stores nationwide. This information will be used by the accounting, shipping, and ordering departments to control all of the functions of this large corporation. The inventory functions are critical to the smooth operation of the system.
Jane, a quality assurance engineer with the software company, suspects that the inventory functions of the system are not sufficiently tested, although they have passed all their contracted tests. She is pressured by her employers to sign off on the software. Legally she is only required to perform those tests which have been agreed to in the original contract. However, her considerable experience in software testing has led her to be concerned over risks of the system.
Her employers say that they will go out of business if they do not deliver the software on time. Jane contends if the Inventory sub-system fails, it will significantly harm their client and its employees. If the potential failure were to threaten lives, it would be clear to Jane that she should refuse to sign off. But since the degree of threatened harm is less, Jane is faced with a difficult ethical decision.
Assignment Task
From what you have learned during Week s 3 and 4 of your Professional Environments Course, discuss ethical, professional and legal issues which you consider arise from this scenario. Make some recommendations of actions which could be taken to resolve the situation and/or to minimise the chance the scenario may recur. Support your answers with relevant references (as well as the Codes and Laws).
Things to Consider in Your Assignment:
• You should list at least 3 clauses from the ACS Code of Ethics and up to 5 clauses from the ACS Code of Professional Conduct, you think are specifically relevant in deciding how to resolve the situation. Make sure that you refer to the most up to date ACS Codes which are available on the ACS website – www.acs.org.au.
• You should also list any relevant Australian legislation that you think applies to this scenario.
• Your analysis, discussion and recommendations should use the framework you selected in Week 3 – Solving an Ethical Dilemma.
Your assignment should be 400 -500 words in length (excluding your code lists, legislation list and references).
You may need to undertake a small amount of research, however, most information you will need is available via the seminars and their references. Also,
• use a cover page – as per the suggested template,
• use in-text referencing,
• use complete Harvard Notation, submit in “Word” format or equivalent format that can be readily opened in MS Word, keep your formatting simple: Arial 11pt, 10pt after paragraph, single line spacing, headings in bold, maximum 2 indent levels/bullet levels. Do not use page borders, word art, page backgrounds or similar extraneous decoration
• Your uploaded file name should identify you as part of its name – e.g.
PE_Assignment1_William_Smith.
Marking Guide
Marks will be awarded using the following guidelines.
• 15% meeting the procedural requirements, including, spelling, grammar, number of words, document formatting,
• 30% how logically and thoroughly you identified and described professional ,ethical and legal issues arising in the scenario,
• 30% how well you developed your recommendations and supported them with relevant, correct referencing,
• 20% how well you convinced the reader that you understood the issues,
• 5% did the material generate interest in the reader?
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