SMS Pro Aviation Safety Software Blog 4 Airlines & Airports

What Is Change Management?

In the aviation industry, it’s important to manage change effectively. Change can be organizational, procedural, or technological.

Change occurs any time an established practice is altered.

Change can seem small, like changing suppliers. Or it could be a large change, like adding a new type of airplane to your feet.

When you plan for changes before they happen, you can take measures to proactively manage risk as well. Managing risk is a fundamental part of managing change.

What Is an SMS Implementation Plan?

As a safety manager, the implementation plan is your road-map to success, but finding guidance on how to create one is difficult at best.

The FAA doesn't provide an implementation plan for the latest Part 5 regulations, but there is an implementation plan suggested by ICAO 9859.

ICAO recommends a 5-year plan with 4 phases of implementation, but this plan may not work well for small organizations, or those with many elements already in place.

RELATED: How to Implement SMS in Small Organizations

The 4 phase plan can be pretty overwhelming at first. Remind yourself that a complete SMS implementation may take years; you're planning a long-term project. Your implementation plan is the document that guides your organization through this process.

What is Change Management

Management of change in aviation SMS is a formal process for facilitating changes in safety programs. Usually, this process is instigated when required changes are going to affect higher level, systems in the SMS. Smaller changes are handled with corrective actions.

The basic tenants of management of change in aviation SMS are:

Why Is Safety Culture So Important?

In many of today's articles about aviation safety management systems, there is something about safety culture. Why? Safety culture ties into every part of your SMS, feeding it as your SMS nurtures your safety culture in return.

It’s a symbiotic relationship, like honeybees and flowers. Each one needs the other to grow and thrive. When your safety culture thrives, your SMS is easier to build and maintain.

So, how do we feed our safety culture in our day-to-day operations?

What is Aviation Safety Policy

An aviation Safety Policy is a document in safety management systems that outlines the core, important safety information that underlies your SMS.

This required document should outline your organization’s;

What Is Safety Culture?

Safety culture is a set of values that a company has in relation to safety and is one of the main characteristics that distinguish one company from other companies.

Some industrial sectors, such as aviation, require a level of safety culture which is higher than in other sectors.

The maturity of the safety culture sometimes depends on the type of business, but this does not mean that industrial sectors, which should have and have a higher level of safety culture, cannot improve. As a matter of fact, safety culture can always be improved.

The Importance of an Aviation SMS Manual

ICAO requires an SMS manual for many aviation organizations required to abide by their SMS mandate. It is very tempting to gloss over your manual...to get it out of the way and never look at it again.

Manuals aren't sexy, and most of the time, they're boring at best. I've read a lot of manuals that were downright painful.

So, how do you make your SMS manual a tool that supports your SMS? Here are three best practices to put your manual to work today.

RELATED: How to Create Your Aviation SMS Manual

What is the Iceberg of Ignorance

The Iceberg of Ignorance was first developed in 1989 by a consultant named Sidney Yoshida. The Iceberg of Ignorance is a model that addressed concerns about safety awareness in large organizations. This model contends that of all problems:

• Only 4% of problems are known to upper managers;
• Only 9% of problems are known to middle managers;
• 74% of problems are known to supervisors; and
• 100% of problems are known to staff and front-line employees.

What is Responsibility?

Responsibility n. the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone. (Oxford Dictionary)

Most of us learned about responsibility as children. Our parents gave us responsibilities like walking the dog or loading the dishwasher. As adults, we’re responsible for paying our bills, finishing our tasks at work, and doing the laundry.

Within your aviation SMS, everyone has some measure of responsibility. At the very least, every employee has a responsibility to report unsafe conditions and to work safely as possible.

Responsibility is a broad term encompassing anything you’re expected to do.

Classify Safety Issues with Classifications

Organizing data and information is extremely important in SMS, as much of your data analysis and performance monitoring depend on such organization. One best practice to organize your data is assign classifications to issues.