SMS Pro Aviation Safety Software Blog 4 Airlines & Airports

How to Conduct Root Cause Analysis

Every aviation safety management system (SMS) contains a subsystem to manage risk associated with reported safety issues and audit findings. This subsystem can be called the SMS' risk management system as this system provides the logical workflow necessary to efficiently:

• Conduct and document investigations;
• Assign and track corrective actions and preventive actions;
• Perform risk assessments; and
• Classify the event for future trend analysis reports.

Cloud-Based Aviation SMS May Make Sound Business Sense

Have you been considering the risks of moving your aviation safety management system (SMS) up to the cloud? In the past ten years, many aviation service providers have been moving their SMS data to the cloud for various reasons, but most make sound economic and business sense.

What Is Safety Training and Education?

Aviation safety training and education is an essential building block for safety culture. Safety culture is understandably important for aviation service providers that are investing in aviation safety management systems (SMS). Without a healthy safety culture, the SMS will never deliver the expected results and moneys will be wasted.

Accountable executives and safety teams must consider whether poor performance of their aviation SMS is a result of lack of training, or a deeper, more sinister safety culture issue.

Safety training can make or break the successful performance of aviation SMS for:

What Is Risk in Aviation SMS Implementations

Risk in aviation safety management systems (SMS) is a tricky subject. Not only is it treated differently in different organizations, but safety professionals tend to get up in arms in front of differing opinions.

The truth is that “risk” is a terribly nebulous word and concept, with multiple ways to use it. What’s important is NOT that you “know what risk is” so much as you “define what risk means to your organization.”

Here are multiple ways that “risk” is used in the risk management industry, in descending order of common use:

• The likelihood and severity of safety mishap occurring;
• Negative safety outcomes, such as damages to equipment or aircraft, injuries, deaths, etc.; and
• Loss of safety control (i.e., “dangerous condition” or “risk event”).

What REALLY Is Continuous Improvement in Aviation SMS?

The objectives of every aviation safety management system (SMS) is to:

• Proactively manage safety in a formal, structured manner;
• Identify potential operational hazards;
• Determine risk to operations and affected stakeholders; and
• Implement control measures to mitigate identified risk.

From a regulator's perspective, they are primarily interested in:

• Whether your company has implemented all required SMS elements; and
• Whether you can demonstrate continuous improvement of your aviation SMS.

Safety Policy Greatly Affects Safety Culture and Safety Performance

"Safety Policy" is a major asset for building an effective safety culture in aviation safety management systems (SMS). An aviation SMS is a complex system of inter-related components and elements, and "Safety Policy" is one of the four SMS components (or pillars). For a quick review, the four SMS components are:

Oversight Agencies Need to Support Risk Management Software

Something we hear about all time is the general lack of support from regulatory oversight agencies during inspections and audits. This lack of support that safety managers complain about regards the usage of risk management software in audits that aviation service providers use daily to manage their required safety management systems (SMS). 

I don't mean to imply that agencies like the FAA, Transport Canada, or EASA are against operators using risk management software by any means, but during audits and inspections, safety inspectors are often unwilling to determine an operator's SMS compliance by logging in and verifying compliance with the service provider's risk management software. These recalcitrant safety inspectors still adhere to the old way of doing things, such as:

• Printed reports;
• Extensive interviews;
• Binders filled with historical SMS documentation activities; and
• Original paper documentation.

Requiring reams of paper-based reports puts significantly more stress and work on aviation service providers to demonstrate SMS compliance. Safety personnel have enough to do without worrying about transferring a significant amount of data from a computer to a paper-stuffed binder. In short, the demands of many safety inspectors contributes to inefficiencies meant to be solved by modern technology.

What is Safety Promotion Component of 4 Pillars?

Aviation safety management systems (SMS) have been required by most aviation service providers since the November 2006 ICAO mandate. To add structure to SMS implementations and to educate safety professionals, ICAO provides SMS implementation guidance in the form of a Safety Management Manual (SMM), now in the fourth edition.

In the SMM, aviation SMS implementation requirements are logically grouped under four components (also known as four pillars):

• Safety Policy;
• Safety Risk Management (SRM);
• Safety Assurance (SA); and
• Safety Policy.

The four components, or pillars, are further broken down into twelve elements, with between two and five elements for each pillar. Safety Promotion pillar has two elements:

• Training and education; and
• Safety communication.

Elements of Safety Risk Management (SRM)

Safety Risk Management receives by far the most attention of any aspect of aviation safety management systems (SMS). It is, as you might say, “where the action is,” in terms of managing risk and the most focused-upon element in an aviation SMS.

Despite the fact that other aspects of aviation risk management processes provide equally valuable assistance in developing an aviation SMS, SRM deals most directly with risk exposure.

SRM is complex, as it:

• Requires as much “documenting what you are doing,” as “doing it”;
• Will be the area of your SMS program where you develop risk management tools; and
• Has many working parts needed to adequately practice SRM.

In this discussion, we'll explore the 4 important elements of Safety Risk Management (SRM).

What Risk Management Decisions Are

Risk management decision making processes will dictate the success of your aviation safety management system (SMS). Period.

Every change, no matter how small, arises from a risk management decision. Decision making processes in risk management programs are often seen as a formal, documentable process, such as those seen in the U.S. military leadership training courses.

Alternatively, risk management decision making can also be an informal, “everyday” kind of process. Some prime examples of risk management decisions in an aviation SMS include: