Upgrading the sagging U.S. infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives our aging infrastructure a D+ grade and estimates that $3.6 trillion dollars must be invested by 2020 to bring our roads, bridges, water, electrical and sewage systems to proper safe working order. However, there are some that say we can’t afford to fix everything. Let the private sector handle it. (see http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/americas-aging-infrastructure-what-to-fix-and-who-will-pay/)

As we have discussed in class Engineers must abide by a Code of Ethics, and specifically Industrial Engineers follow the Code of Ethics by NSPE. In your groups, you are to consider both of these huge projects to the country and you need to do the following:

1. Research the true state of our aging infrastructure and discuss how ASCE came up with it’s grade. You should include what has been done to date since ASCE published it’s report.

 

  

Requirements:

· Individual accountability and responsibility: Each team member researches the case assigned on their own prior to the first team meeting. The team member is required to come to the team meeting with a written document with a basic information about the case and the source of the information. A minimum of 5 sources should be brought to the first team meeting about the assignment. 

 

 

  

Research information– 

A key to successful research is to use reliable, high-quality information sources. While high quality information can be found on the open Web, it can be hard to pick out from the vast amounts of unreliable and unsourced material that also exist there. Using the library is the best way to ensure you are using the best research sources.