SMS Pro Aviation Safety Software Blog 4 Airlines & Airports

Why KPIs Are Different in Aviation Safety Management Systems?

Key performance indicators (KPIs) in aviation safety management systems (SMS) are different than KPIs from most other industries. The differences both benefit and hurt safety management teams' ability to choose the right KPIs for their organization.

The important differences between aviation SMS KPIs and other industries are that:

• KPIs in aviation need to cover a broader spectrum of performance (quality, safety, compliance) than most industries;
• Aviation is one of the highest risk industries, both financially and in terms of safety;
• Oversight agencies provide more oversight and guidance than most other industries; and
• “Performance” in aviation safety has several different meanings.

What Is a Key Performance Indicator?

Answering the question, what is a key performance indicator, is not exactly as straightforward as it may seem.

This is because key performance indicators, known commonly as KPIs, have multiple uses in aviation safety management systems (SMS).

Most obviously, as “performance” in the name implies, KPIs are data metrics (i.e. “Indicators”) used to track “performance” in aviation SMS.

What Are Lagging Indicators in Aviation SMS?

Lagging indicators are an extremely important element of system performance monitoring in aviation safety management systems (SMS). Safety professionals and the accountable executive should become familiar with lagging indicators as these managers are responsible for regularly reviewing organizational safety performance and detecting substandard safety performance.

Lagging indicators show the historical performance of your aviation SMS implementation. They answer 3 essential questions about safety in your risk management program:

• What safety events are happening?
• How many safety events are happening?
• Where are safety events happening?

These questions can be broken down further to ask specific questions about safety performance. Understanding historical safety performance is a prerequisite for identifying underlying causes and leading indicators in your aviation SMS implementation.

What Is a Key Performance Indicator in Aviation SMS?

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are data metrics used to track performance in aviation safety management systems (SMS). This “performance” was not intended to measure only safety, but also quality and financial performance as well.

Understanding what is a key performance indicator is an essential component of being able to identify signs of good KPIs.

Here are the 4 most important things you need to understand about what KPIs are (ideally), and how KPIs are used in aviation SMS:

1. KPIs directly reflect performance of company safety goals and objectives;
2. Key performance indicators show only the “key” data – the most important data for operational performance;
3. A KPI is always SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound); and
4. KPIs are organization-specific, which means every organization will have a unique list of KPIs, as well as many shared industry-relevant key performance indicators to compare performance across their industry.

Difficulty of Selecting KPIs in Aviation Safety Programs

Selecting key performance indicators (KPIs) in aviation safety management systems (SMS) is neither simple nor always intuitive. In addition to being time consuming and costly, selecting and monitoring KPIs can also be a stressful experience.

Lives depend on choosing good KPIs. Your job may depend on selecting good KPIs.

Fortunately, selecting KPIs is helped by the fact that:

• There are proven steps for choosing KPIs in aviation SMS implementations;
• There are documented “rules” for choosing key performance indicators; and
• Having specific safety goals and objectives will inform which KPIs should be chosen.

Questions on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Aviation

Aviation safety professionals frequently email our subject matter experts (SMEs) for opinions regarding aviation safety management systems (SMS) and advice as to managing key performance indicators (KPIs). Goal setting relating to key performance indicators is also another very common thread we are asked about.

In the case that follows, I was asked:

"If I were to join the one KPI on Quality & Safety for a CEO in the Aviation business, what would you recommend me to suggest? My intention is to open this in the CEO’s KPIs as a performance target. Please assist if you can and thank you in anticipation!"

Why Aviation KPIs Lagging and Leading Indicators Are Important

Lagging and leading indicators for aviation safety management systems (SMS) key performance indicators (KPIs) are often confused or misunderstood.

Even various online sources have conflicting, vague, or incomplete explanations of the difference between lagging and leading indicators.

Why Use Aviation Key Performance Indicators As Goals or Objectives

Setting goals and objectives for your aviation safety management system (SMS) is a requirement, i.e., not optional.

Become accustomed to this requirement. Embrace it. Realize organizational value from this requirement and stop squandering an excellent opportunity to improve operations and show that the SMS can become the promised "profit driver."

Safety Managers Suffer Common Problem Selecting Valuable KPIs

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) measure how effectively aviation service providers are achieving key business or safety objectives. Civil aviation authorities also use KPIs to evaluate their success at reaching safety targets.

When focusing on safety, there is a tendency of some safety professionals to use the term "safety performance indicator" (SPI) to differentiate pure business metrics with safety metrics. Rest assured, SPIs are subsets of KPIs.

Using Safety Key Performance Indicators in Your Aviation SMS

Most aviation safety professionals today are managing their aviation safety management systems (SMS) using automated tools. These full-featured SMS database tools allow safety managers to easily classify issues according to many criteria.

Safety managers benefit from using SMS databases because they can more easily analyze trends to bring pressing concerns to management.

An SMS database also allows other department heads to analyze data and discover trends to focus on. These are excellent opportunities to actively involve managers in the SMS, thus reducing resistance to the SMS from managerial staff and adding value to these manager's decision making processes.