MEMO

Memo

Memo

Introduction

GEI is a long-term military contractor and manufacturer of protective body armor, munitions equipment, and armored vehicles, with annual revenues of $300 billion. GEI employs 140 workers each highly paid union technicians and mechanics, members of the Union of Munitions and Armor Workers (UMAW).  GEI manufactures protective body flak jackets, night vision rifle scopes, and armored tank vehicles for the U.S. military.

Contrary to international law and treaties, it also manufactures land mines exporting them to Afghanistan and Iran, its best foreign customers.  More than half of its profits derive from these clandestine operations.

All of GEI's products have problems. Although paid handsomely for its body armor, munitions equipment and armored vehicles, the materials used in manufacturing are substandard. The flak jackets do not fully protect military service members from most antipersonnel ammunition. The simple addition of superior quality material in the flak jackets would prevent most injuries, but GEI did not tell the military because changing materials would be costly, and GEI fears it would lose its contract.  In addition, its night vision rifle scopes work erratically and often not at all, resulting in injuries and deaths of service personnel in combat situations.  The armored vehicles, though strong and sturdy on the sides and top have only a thin sheet of steel on their undersides, making them especially vulnerable to IED (Improvised Explosive Device) explosions.

Ethics Issue Statement

The problems are not new. The difference is that the “greening” of manufacturing has become mainstream. Discussion of ethics, social responsibility, and sustainability is no mere management fashion.

Facts, Findings and Analysis

Manufacturing is divided into functional divisions. However, the transformation model comprises a number of processes that cross-functional boundaries and that may be carried out in a linear, or better still, in concurrent mode. Key areas discussed here are design, facilities Management, and supply-chain management. At each stage of the model, ethical decisions have to be made. If the consumer is demanding an ethical product, this means that the whole life cycle of that product must be evaluated from an ethical point of view (generally referred to as life cycle analysis [LCA]). If a football has been made with child labor, for example, the consumer is likely to boycott the company.

Now that consumers are increasingly conscious of global warming, they want to know the energy efficiency of the end product, but they are also starting to ask questions about efficiencies in the actual manufacturing process. ...