During the design and development stages of a remote meter reading system for residential electricity use, the two engineers working on the project for the City of Forest Ridge noted something different than they expected. The first, an electrical/ software engineer, noted that their city liaison staff member provided all the information on the software options, but only one option, the one from Lorier Software, was ever discussed and detailed. The second designer, an industrial systems engineer, further noted that all the hardware specifications provided to them by this same liaison all came from the same distributor, namely, Delsey Enterprises. Coincidently, at a weekend family picnic for city employees, to which the engineers had been invited, they met a couple named Don Delsey and Susan Lorier. Upon review, they learned that the man Don is the son-in-law of the city liaison and Susan is his step daughter. Based on these observations, before they proceed further with development of the system, what should the two engineers do, if anything, about their suspicions that the city liaison person is trying to bias the design to favor the use of his relative’s software and hardware businesses?
