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GM Names Names, Suspends Two Engineers Over Ignition-Switch Safety
cartechboy (2660665) writes "GM said it has placed two engineers on paid leave in connection with its massive recall probe of 2 million vehicles. Now, GM is asking NASA to advise on whether those cars are safe to drive even with the ignition key alone. Significantly, individual engineers now have their names in print and face a raft of inquiries what they did or didn't know, did or didn't do, and when. A vulnerability for GM: One engineer may have tried to re-engineer the faulty ignition switch without changing the part number—an unheard-of practice in the industry. Is it a good thing that people who engineer for a living can now get their names on national news for parts designed 10 years ago? The next time your mail goes down, should we know the name of the guy whose code flaw may have caused that?"
What follows is my baseless personal opinion based only on what I see at similar businesses ---
The engineer that changed the part without changing the part number and without management knowing intentionally did it behind their back because management wouldn't let him make the change. Everyone knew about the problem. Management knew changing the part was akin to admitting the fault. The engineer did it on his own to save lives - company be damned. And he kept the part number the same so that no one would know.
I'll be more impressed when they suspend/fire the managers/executives that did not pass along the information or made the decision it would cost less to pay off victims than fix it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Did they name the director that ordered the two engineers to cover up the change? There's no way the engineers decided to do that on their own volition.
The fine article submission asks:
One key difference here is that the engineer(s) responsible for redesigning the switch and not changing the part number were not just implementing an everyday change that happened to be buggy. By not changing the part number, their actions are more akin to trying to fix a known bug that has exposed the company to huge potential liabilities, and then hacking the version control system to make it look like the bug was never there, in full intentional pursuit of obfuscation and ass-covering.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Specifically, OnStar.
I can remember one of the development groups there "discovering" Agile, and immediately trying to patent the crap out of every process they could. Specifically, they were patenting how they made "new" processes to make Agile work with their awful SDP-21 development process (waterfall)..... by putting multiple sprints inside of the waterfall.
The place was soul sucking, conformity was desperately sought in all people, and management was desperate to throw underlings under the bus in order to save their own $160,000/year jobs (the talent for which they never really possessed).
You know... sort of like what is happening to these two engineers.
Why is it whenever people die, get disenfranchised, etc due to willful actions by individuals, that must never be known, but when an engineer makes an honest mistake in openssl, or does a mediocre job on part at GM, it's pitchforks and torches? What about the coverup? The bad cost analysis? The management decisions? Those are far more to blame than the engineer who didn't follow industry standard practice (and probably was ordered to do so)...
The next time your mail goes down, should we know the name of the guy whose code flaw may have caused that?"
Why not let software engineers take responsibility for their work just like "real" engineers do when they sign off on a project?
The developer responsible for the Heartbleed bug that put the privacy of millions of users at risk stood up and took responsibility for his mistake.
If you know that the world is going to hear about it if you screw up, then maybe you'll take a little more time to vet your work before you sign off on it.
What a bullshit news story, it is written is broken and bastardized English. Lets discuss a reputable story instead.
...blame yourself for using a service which relies on magic and good will to scale further than is sensible.
Meanwhile email evidence emerged that Mary Barra knew about the issues as far back as 2011. Which would mean she lied to Congress in testimony.
2 engineers are let go, while the people who lie under oath still walk free.
My parents met working at GM - and later in life got totally screwed as their pension went bankrupt with the Old GM... while 'New' GM escapes liability for issues they knew about and covered up. I will never buy a GM car in my life.
CAPTCHA: Equality.
Professional Engineers get big bucks and are held to professional standards. They either belong to associations that provide insurance or their employer gets insurance for them or they get it themselves. If they screw up, they get called out by the professional associations that they belong to. Sometimes there are legal ramifications for screwing up but always they are responsible for what they do - they are professionals.
I'm not saying that it's good, and this case is an example of exactly why it can be a bad idea to do this, but changing part numbers has a lot of overhead (inventory management of multiple part numbers, all the manuals that now refer to the wrong number, etc)
If it's expected that the new part is significantly different than the old one, then it's worth all the pain, but if it's not expected to be significantly different (just cheaper to build, or more reliable when nobody expects series reliability problems with the old one, etc) its not completely insane to just change the design and keep the same part number.
If you want to be really paranoid, you track each batch of parts produced as a separate item, because minor things like the temprature that day could theoretically affect something. In medical and aerospace industries, this sort of tracking is done (which is one of the reasons why 'simple' things are so expensive in those industries)
but in the automotive industry that level of tracking is just not done, and it's very common for parts to be substatuted with no notice.
In the computer industry, it's unfortuantly common for some manufacturers to make what many people consider major changes (like changing chipsets) without changing the part number.
David Lang
Is it a good thing that people who engineer for a living can now get their names on national news for parts designed 10 years ago? The next time your mail goes down, should we know the name of the guy whose code flaw may have caused that?
Yes. Well nearly. That is a good thing. If these engineers were found to act unethically in this regard they should be punished. Where I live professional engineers are registered and the charter of professional engineers put a great deal of weight on the ethical practice of engineering. Should the same go for software? Absolutely. I have long held the belief that software can be life critical at times and software engineers should be held to the same professionalism as any other form of engineering.
Now I said well nearly because these people didn't get their name in the news for mis-designing a part. They got their name in the news for trying to cover up the fact that they mis-designed a part and potentially put the public in danger in the process. I don't believe they acted alone since it would take more than 2 people to pull off something like this unless GM really has no oversight structure, but if a software engineer made a mistake that was discovered to potentially cause a fatality and then attempted to cover it up by messing with the system so it looks like the bug never existed then by all means they should definitely have their name up in lights.
its about time GM did something! but alas, it is too late for some families. :(
Is it really likely that two engineers are entirely at fault, or that they were following orders from upper management?
The blame for tragedy always hits the most accessible people, and never those who introduced the corporate culture that enabled shoddy workmanship and bad engineering.
I'm positive there are people above these engineers who are just as responsible but will never be held accountable.
I get to know the name of the guy responsible when my e-mail is working properly. Already a thankless job filled with unfair blame, are we really going to escalate the war on science further?
Engineers are professionally certified with professional responsibility, if they aren't doing their job it's criminal and names need to be named. Just as a physician working for a hospital is named for accusations of negligence.
It's not obvious if that's relevant here, but if someone tried to pass themselves off as a professional engineer and aren't that's a problem, if someone who is a professional engineering violated the ethical principles that's a problem too.
How many people died? They get paid leave?
Do engineers usually get to decide the part number of the part they design?
I can see parallels here to the Snowden affair. Basically, if you blow the whistle on management acting unethically, you are screwed. Whether it's Snowden blowing the whistle on the Feds or some engineer blowing the whistle on GM management, there is no protection for someone wanting to do the right thing. This is how Nazi Germany got to where they ended up. We don't know if one of these engineers wanted to blow the whistle, but usually engineers want to engineer, they don't care about bean counting, so its a fair bet he wanted it done right, but wasn't allowed to.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Edmund Burke.
The way society is going, having good men do something gets harder and harder.
Had me going there. For a minute I thought there might be some discussion that the people running GM might somehow be at fault. Thankfully they are blameless as always, and have rooted the true culprits in the form those dastardly engineers.
Seriously though, I'm tired of being told that it's OK for these people to be super super rich because of all the value they add and the risks they take, when $#@! like this keeps happening and they never once take a hit. I know it's how ruling classes work and all, but it still sucks...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What, exactly just what the fuck are you doing putting Engineers on leave?
Corporate protocol demands that the guilty culprit must be either a Janitor, or a mailroom clerk!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Engineers DESIGN the part. The task to register, assign and record a part number belongs to a different group. In fact, you can't even update a production design document without the software bumping the version number automatically and flagging it as new.
So the claim that engineers cover up the change in design is pure BS.
They just found a few escape goats to blame as a PR stunt trying to cover up the gross negligence of the company's management team.
GM didn't name names. A government investigator did.
Get your facts before you post. You all look like idiots now:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/11/business/gm-suspends-2-engineers-in-switch-inquiry.html
From TFA
This is asinine CYA. It's safer to drive these cars than to unload your dishwasher and take a chance at stumbling and impaling yourself on a knife in the silverware basket.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
GM Cars are designed by a crack team of accountants not engineers that's why they generally suck. Did anyone question the penny pinchers that directed the engineers that they must save 0.20 cents on each ignition switch?
Making mid-production changes in parts without changing the part number -- at least the customer-visible part number -- is not unheard-of, it's common.
Looks like someone is too big not to fail.
Companies let these things happen.
It's like where you work - you're free to speak of problems, but if you do prepare to face the consequences of being honest. The reason the Engineer probably even attempted to change the part was because if he'd followed the process he would have been flayed alive. It's corporate culture, that's it.
These problems happen, it's an accepted risk of sitting in a large piece of metal that travels over 100 km/h - something might break and you might die.
This is down to GM being a horrible company who force their employees to act in this manner, enforce an obviously horrible corporate culture where CEOs and/or Managers take no responsibility and in the end let people die as part of their ongoing risk factors.
See here for how a real CEO should act: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toyota-ceo-akio-toyodas-testimony-congress/story?id=9924855: "The CEO of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, told Congress he took "full responsibility" for the safety defects in the company's cars that have been linked to the deaths of 39 Americans.".
I own a 2004 Saturn Ion. I used to work as an automotive test engineer. Sometimes defects can be missed in testing, but the safety net is watching warranty returns. All car companies closely watch which parts are getting unusually high warranty return rates. When warranty rates get above certain level, a recall is suppose to be issued. A high level manager mostly likely thought they could get away with not doing it and save some money.
I remember having to call 5 different locksmiths to find who could get the stuck key out of the ignition. The first four said they would not service an ION ignition keys because it had a design flaw and the guy nice enough to help me told me he could fix it, but it would break again because of a design flaw in the lock. This was 4 years ago.that it was already common knowledge that this was a problem. I have had my ignition system replaced 3 times. It breaks about every 2 years.
I think the ignition switch engineer is likely the scapegoat, someone involved in warranty tracking is at fault.
Risk vs Reward for engineer - Dilbert
Reward - A cheap plastic frame with a certificate.
Risk - Millions of people die.
Every change has drawings behind it, and a rev number change. Every one. Not doing so is a deliberate act to hide something.
So what if someone changes a part without changing the number? You mean nobody down the line noticed? At some point it needs to be manufactured, so you might as well point the finger at the mold and die maker or whatever machine setup change needed to be made for "part number 123xyz". There has to be a paper trail a mile wide on this...
I could see two potential outcomes, if blaming engineers for product flaws becomes commonplace...
First, engineers will (or should) demand an indemnity clause as part of their employment contract, where the company agrees not to blame them publicly for any product flaws, and/or take any action which would identify them. Depending on the repercussions for the test cases, this might become a necessity for employees.
Second, I could see some significant lawsuits for slander, since the company is causing real (and substantial, and more importantly provable) financial loss for the engineers they blame for product deficiencies. Unless they have a pretty solid intentional negligence defense, they could (and absolutely should) find themselves paying out a few million more to each engineer they throw under the metaphorical bus.
Companies are responsible for their products, not the people they employ to make/provide them. Companies reap the rewards when they work, and bear the responsibility when they don't. Absent malicious negligence, naming/blaming individual employees is irresponsible at best, and should absolutely expose the company to civil liability.
The US Government just started to try collect "debts" owed by (now dead) parents from their living children. In some cases these debts are over 30 years old, and all the financial information is lost - other than the government simply saying the debt exists.
Let's get the name of the senior government official who created this little scheme as well. If this can (and / or should) happen to Engineers - let's let it happen to individual senior managers as well. If "personal responsibility" is now key to your job - let's let that go across the board.
* Did the Engineers managers approve the designs?
I would be even more impressed if the manages who refused to the change were charged with criminal negligence, reckless endangerment and 13 counts of manslaughter.
Make them 3 strike losers and lock the fuckers in prison forever.
A mail outage isn't the same as a fatal design flaw.
I hate sigs.
Well your post is bullshit. You wrote it in broken and bastardized English. A period should go where your comma is thus capitalizing "it" and "Lets" has an apostrophe because it is a contraction. Here is where you can take off your blinders and realize your house is made of glass too so perhaps you shouldn't throw stones.
Then I never want to work in a critical position that demands that I solve intractable problems. I think the real answer here is to quit overdoing the plumbing. Needed complexity is understandable. Needless complexity is stupid. Just because we can put the computer in control of everything doesn't mean we should.
More likely the engineer changed the part to cover his ass.
/. who thinks he knows better than anyone, and that management is a bunch of doody-heads.
Or, if his intentions were good, he's the arrogant kind of prick that infests
You know, hero.
Everyone is SO fscking focused on the engineers. Yes, I am one. Here's my view:
What about part inspection and quality control? That switch has a detent holding force spec. Does NOBODY inspect batches of switches? No random sample tests? Doesn't someone do a final check on the car? Someone sits in it and turns the key, right? Didn't anyone notice the detent force was lacking?
If the switch detent holding force is this critical, then _EVERY_ switch should have been tested. It would be trivial to make a test jig and would be a 2-second automated test.
There are _many_ reasons this could have happened, accidentally or intentionally. It's not only engineers who can make changes. There are many examples in history where the maker / builder deviates from the engineered plans. St. Louis skywalk comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse
Tyler Durden
This is a self-serving move by GM.
Perhaps the engineers named are responsible for the deaths caused by the faulty switch. Perhaps they are not. We don't know. But we can be certain that GM is naming these engineers in the hope that the public will blame and vilify them instead of the company.
This is an attempt to evade corporate responsibility disguised as an act of transparency. Even if the engineers bear some responsibility for the faulty design reaching production vehicles, it should be impossible for two engineers alone to put an obviously unsafe assembly into a production car, even if they conspire to do that *deliberately*. Obvious flaws should have been caught in design reviews, non-obvious flaws in prototyping and testing.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"The next time your mail goes down, should we know the name of the guy whose code flaw may have caused that?""
Two words for you: "git blame".
If one or two engineers can change a part as is claimed here, and the part actually get installed in the car without any warning flags are reaised, the control systems at GM are obviously not up to a minimal standard.
The design would need to go through several stages before it reaches the car. Changes in a part require changes in the parts production. Can one or two engineers engineer authorize that? Me thinks not.
And publishing the names of the engineers just show how spineless the management are.
I smell a scapegoat here.
This isn't rocket science... why ask any scientist less qualified than an astronaut? GM built the lunar module, so NASA is very qualified to stall a car on the moon..
The aim of all internal investigations is to find the the people furthest down on the totem pole you can blame for the ordeal, discipline them to redirect attention from the executives who were really at fault, and move on.
>The next time your mail goes down, should we know the name of the guy whose code flaw may have caused that?
Are you stupid? There's a world of difference between your mail being unavalable and a flaw in a vehicle that can cause people to die. Slashdot is such shit these days.
High school dropouts? I don't think so. Truth is, as the recent OpenSSL debacle shows, most people are incompetent retards. It doesn't matter that they came from MIT or a correctional school. They are the real terrorists. Will the escalator I ride on my way to work just blow up? It's not a question of if but when.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Management gets credit for rooting out the evil engineers and probably gets a bonus.
why is this modded up? the poster said that they were guessing. Moded up as we cannot believe that an engineer was human, that they f'd up, then tried to cover it up? Granted, this sniffs correct, but the 'hero' label is waaay over the top. Would love some facts from some of the other posters who do/did work in the auto industry and GM: 1 - how often does a part get modified - like in this case it was off a smidge, but otherwise unchanged 2 - how often does a part just get modified without some QA oversight? (IOW, why didn't QA and all that 6 sigma crap get fired too ?) 3 - can an engineer just make this change, independently, and manufacturing or the OEM will now retool this silly little part and just do it? what I'd really want to know, tho: a) is were the engineers who made the change in design, aware of the accidents and death caused as a result of this bad design? b) we keep hearing it was a $0.20 part. But what were the recall costs?
I could see two potential outcomes, if blaming engineers for product flaws becomes commonplace...
First, engineers will (or should) demand an indemnity clause as part of their employment contract, where the company agrees not to blame them publicly for any product flaws, and/or take any action which would identify them. Depending on the repercussions for the test cases, this might become a necessity for employees.
Although it would be a good idea, it'll never happen... at least not until get you get Engineer Unions who refuse to work unless a company implements those clauses and prevent any scabs from working. And with the libertarian bent of most Engineers, that will never happen. Otherwise, you'll simply have the engineer refuse to sign the company's boilerplate employment agreement because it doesn't include an indemnity clause; and the company will show him the door and bring in the next candidate who will sign it.
Second, I could see some significant lawsuits for slander, since the company is causing real (and substantial, and more importantly provable) financial loss for the engineers they blame for product deficiencies. Unless they have a pretty solid intentional negligence defense, they could (and absolutely should) find themselves paying out a few million more to each engineer they throw under the metaphorical bus.
Not necessarily, depending on what was said. Slander requires that the statement be false. Did the engineer screw up? If so, then it's not slander. The only way it would be is if the engineer did nothing other than follow explicit instructions from his superiors, and considering that he apparently made a change without changing a part number, that would seem unlikely.
Also, there's no such things as "intentional negligence" - that's an oxymoron, and would mean that you intended to do something by accident. What you may be thinking of is gross recklessness.
Companies are responsible for their products, not the people they employ to make/provide them. Companies reap the rewards when they work, and bear the responsibility when they don't. Absent malicious negligence, naming/blaming individual employees is irresponsible at best, and should absolutely expose the company to civil liability.
There's a gloss here - these are Professional Engineers, with certifications, licensing, and ethical requirements. PEs are also responsible for the things they sign off on, and may be held professionally accountable for their screw-ups. Now, that said, yes, the company is the one who is civilly liable for any damages from their products and no customer can sue the engineer directly, but that doesn't mean that (a) the company can't sue the engineer if they really were reckless; and (b) the company can't even name the engineer.
CEO gets gigantic bonus for driving the company into the ground AND getting those pesky engineers.
Job well done!
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
If low-level employees should take full responsibility for their actions, then management has no reason to exist. Simple as that.
A good leader passes on praise and takes blame. I've seen neither process at GM.
Typically in a business the management structure is paid more the closer you get to the CEO of that company. They are compensated more because, as the theory goes, they are responsible for the assets below them. Being responsible means that you need to have visibility and control over what you are responsible for and take the blame and credit for what might go wrong or right. If two engineers were put on leave, than I hope that the managers over them were also educated on how the engineers made poor decisions and how they might avoid the issue in the future. If the engineers kept this a secret, I would expect the QA and change control departments would catch the mistake(of hiding a change without changing the version number). To buy a story that just two engineers could have sole blame in a faulty component affecting 2 million vehicles is ridiculous or the result of some pretty poor management. My point, if two engineers were put on leave and potentially fired, some subset of the management above them should also be fired.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Well, speaking as a [software] engineer...
In my profession, there are certainly certifications one can get, and ethical considerations (as a general statement), although there is no particular licensing. Regardless of these, though, I am employed to write software, but I would not certify that the software I write is flaw-free (nor would anyone else that I know). It's entirely possible that, due to flaws in my work product, someone will lose money, or have other negative outcomes befall them.
If that happened, and my employer blamed me publicly (explicitly or implicitly), I would be seeking large monetary damages, even if the flaw was my fault. My argument would be that I'm employed to write software, not write flaw-free software, and if the company causes me damages (in current or future income) by stating or implying that I did not perform by work duties appropriately, then that is slander, and they are liable. In this case, the "lie" would be to imply that my work product was supposed to be flaw-free, which I never asserted or consented to, regardless of what they desired. Implying that someone is unable to perform one's occupation is textbook slander, and the company would find themselves writing a large check. And yes, even naming the engineer in this context, without strong evidence of gross or malicious negligence, would be cause for civil penalty (imho).
I guess it just comes down to this: there are laws which protect people from having their lives and/or livelihood ruined by false accusation (direct or implied), and implying that an engineer must create a flaw-free work product to be proficient is a false accusation (unless there's a specific contractual obligation to do so, and that would seem suspicious). If I were a company considering this, I'd think twice, and then not expose myself to the obvious liability.
If that happened, and my employer blamed me publicly (explicitly or implicitly), I would be seeking large monetary damages, even if the flaw was my fault. My argument would be that I'm employed to write software, not write flaw-free software, and if the company causes me damages (in current or future income) by stating or implying that I did not perform by work duties appropriately, then that is slander, and they are liable. In this case, the "lie" would be to imply that my work product was supposed to be flaw-free, which I never asserted or consented to, regardless of what they desired.
With all due respect, that's not only not slander, and you'd lose any such suit, you'd also make yourself permanently unemployable - no company would ever touch you with a ten foot.
Implying that someone is unable to perform one's occupation is textbook slander, and the company would find themselves writing a large check.
Not if, as you acknowledge, you are unable to complete the services for which you were paid. While you may think that you weren't hired to make bug-free software, the employer - and any jury - would disagree.
Sure, why not hunt down engineers and kill them?
As an engineer I know it is common practice to sign papers that state anything I design is my company's property. If my designs make them money that is good. But if there is a problem with the design later should I be blamed? Not fair, I am not liable for anything.
Management are paid the big bucks, because in theory, they are held accountable when fuckups happen.
We keep on being told that meritocracy is the American Way. But what I see here, are a bunch of overpaid slimebags avoiding accountability, avoiding responsibility, and hanging the engineers out to dry.
If Barra has any personal integrity whatsoever, she should accept responsibility for this, and for lying to Congress, and fall on her sword.
Or is "personal responsibility" only for the little people?
my 120,000 or so dslams aren't life or death. the folks one floor above me in 911/E911, now THOSE folks have a sword over their heads.
anybody working with a life-safety part or service, there is no room for half-ass work. clearly the process at GM was shot full of holes and "don't bother me," and they're going to end up answering to the Justice Department.
as it should be.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Licensing is done at the state level and generally apply to designs that reside within the state - bridge, dam, etc. An "industrial exemption" exists for widgets that may be sold out of state like cars or radios. AFAIK, most PEs are civil engineers and can't recall ever working with someone with a PE in 30+ years (circuit and chip design).
Escalators don't blow up. They fall open and grind you up like a slow motion wood chipper. Feet first.
In case any /. phobics don't have enough to obsess on.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I am curious if any of you responders actually work in the automotive OEM industry. First everyone should note that the ignition switch in question is NOT manufactured by GM but is purchased from an approved supplier. The GM engineer is only responsible to make sure that the part functions correctly and even then might be relying on validation testing that is done by the supplier and not GM. Secondly the validation testing might not include a test where circumstances can cause the switch to rotate to the OFF position. I think it would be interesting to find out where and when the incidents occurred and what the driver's key chain looked like. I am sure that none of them were just a single key "probably a key with lots of other keys and key chain charms with lots of weight".
Now a few facts about what happens when the key turns off and the engine stops. The first thing to go is the power steering but that doesn't mean NO STEERING just very much higher effort to turn the wheels. So while steering becomes extremely difficult it is not impossible. Next comes the power brakes. Power brake systems rely on vacuum created by the running engine to add assist in pushing the peddle. If the vacuum is lost then the assist is gone but only after applying the brakes a couple of times. What that means is that when the engine turns off you have only 2 or three peddle pushes before full braking is lost. This has been the case since power brakes were introduced and when I first got my license that was taught to everyone in driver's school. Please note that when I go my license power brakes were an option and expensive. Also regarding the brakes, losing the engine does not affect the "E" brake which can stop a vehicle if there isn't any power to the drive wheels (which there isn't due to the engine not running).
Back to the ignition switch. When the incident of an ignition switch accidentally rotating and turning off the engine GM would have initiated a process which would provide a risk analysis of what might happen is it occurred. That would include the potential number of switches that might act like this (short term and long term) and the potential consequences if it happens. Depending upon the report there are three potential options to choose. One, do nothing. Two start a silent recall (that is, if a customer comes in complaining of a faulty working switch then just replace it free of charge. Three start an open recall and replace all vehicle ignition switches. As you can see each will have its own cost to GM and being a "for profit" company it will make the decision that best meets it financial goals and not necessarily what is best for the public good. (the result of a capitalist financial system).
I personally have worked and designed automotive components at the OEM (Tier1 and Tier2) level and before I would any decision about who is at fault I would want to get more information such as when was the problem discovered and when did new better updated parts start being used. For those people who were injured I would like to know what the vehicle was and how old was it and where did the accident occur. I will say that changing a part without changing the part number is a big no-no in the industry and in my 30+ years have never seen that happen but obviously it can. Also, everyone should realize that due to the amount of media coverage this incident is getting heads must roll and the easiest to do that with is the engineer responsible. I would be very interested in the documentation (letters, email, drawings, test results, etc.) that was generated since the problem was first detected. One might find out that the ultimate person responsible for not changing the part number could have come at a much higher level.
Just sayin'
One engineer may have tried to re-engineer the faulty ignition switch without changing the part numberâ"an unheard-of practice in the industry.
In my experience this is quite common, the part number identifies the requirement/role, not the actual part implementation. If you buy a Original Equipment, 3rd pattern part or cheapo import they always have the same part-number.
For example STC4382 is the part number for a wheel bearing on various Land Rovers and is the same for Original Land Rover Part, BritPart pattern replacement or superior Timken replacement.