Managers must take an active role in SMS to consistently account for their knowledge and experience of operations.
I believe managers need to be trained in SMS to ensure their effective participation and contribution to the SMS.
Well-constructed and well-delivered SMS training can make a huge difference in increasing managers’ understanding of the SMS and awareness of safety.
Topics: Risk Management Training
Teamwork is a word used often in the workplace. We’ve all heard that it’s important to work together. Why cover the same ground again?
Lack of teamwork can have serious safety consequences. In aviation, our jobs affect others. Even when we seem to be working on our own, our work ties into other parts of the operation.
Safety is part of being a good teammate and teamwork plays a key role in safety. As such, we all take on responsibility for being a good teammate and keeping each other safe.
If we work in a vacuum without regard for others, we can contribute to unsafe conditions. For the sake of our teams, it is crucial that we work together to keep everyone safe.
Topics: Human Factors
Grab a spare pen and paper so you can write down some notes. What we are looking for is a total score. It works like this:
Topics: Safety Culture
You’re probably familiar with the 4 Phases of SMS implementation outlined by ICAO 9859. Here, I’ll break them down another way, into 7 steps.
For a deep dive into how to use the 4 Phases of SMS implementation, start with How to Complete Phase 1 of Aviation SMS Implementation.
If, for whatever reason, the four phases don’t resonate with you, here is another way to look at building an SMS for aviation service providers. Much like the 4 phases, these are not steps that must be taken in order.
It’s more like learning the seven steps of a line dance. Sometimes you’ll go forward, and sometimes you’ll go back.
Topics: Aviation SMS Implementation
It's very important to review SMS Manuals.
The most common audit finding is that the operator is not conducting operations as stated in their SMS manual.
Furthermore, your manual is only as useful as the information it contains. If the information is out of date, employees will lose trust in it. This undermines the safety culture you've worked to build.
Review your manual at regular intervals. Annual reviews are best practice, but some operators go as long as 3 years between reviews.
Outside of regular reviews, you should also review your manual when:
Topics: 1-Safety Policy
If there is one thing all aviation compliance authority guidelines (including ICAO) agree upon, it’s that your aviation safety mitigation controls need to be thoroughly analyzed BEFORE you implement them.
Safety mitigation controls are the bedrock of your risk mitigation strategy.
Safety mitigation controls are also commonly called:
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
Confidentiality in aviation SMS refers to how much personal information should be made available to your organization. By personal information, we are mainly talking about personal information in safety reports, such as people involved or the name of the reporter.
Topics: Safety Culture
Element 2.2 of ICAO’s requirements is for you to develop and maintain a process to:
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
ICAO and civil aviation authorities require SMS for many organizations. Even so, it's important to have buy-in from top management to make your SMS effective.
Lack of top management support remains among the top reasons an aviation SMS may fail.
Here are four, common-sense tips to help you earn top management support.
Topics: 1-Safety Policy
Safety performance monitoring and measurement is an extremely important part of Safety Assurance. It’s how you verify the safety performance your organization. By safety performance, we are talking about:
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
These two on-demand videos offer:
