SMS Pro Aviation Safety Software Blog 4 Airlines & Airports

Why Repeat Safety Incidents Are a Big Concern

Repeat safety incidents are extremely indicative of management’s safety performance in mitigating safety concerns.

Having repeat safety incidents is clear evidence that management is “missing” or “overlooking” something when they are correcting reported safety concerns. This is bad for safety performance, and it’s bad for audit performance.

On the other hand, the lack of repeat incidents indicates that whatever you are doing to mitigate safety concerns, it’s working. The most important factors in mitigating safety concerns are:

What Is a Management System

This article is originally inspired by a rather insightful video discussing the interplay between safety management and quality assurance.

A management system is a set of processes used to manage “findings” during operations.

“Findings” are simply things you discover in your operations that are less than ideal. We can also call findings “issues.” There can be many types of issues, such as:

• Safety;
• Security;

What Is an Acceptable Level of Safety (ALoS)

The objective of aviation safety management systems (SMS) is to

1. Proactively manage safety,
2. Identify and report potential safety hazards,
3. Determine risk to operational safety; and
4. Implement risk controls to mitigate identified risk.

Things to Prepare for Aviation SMS Audits

There are many aviation audit checklists available online.

While these checklists offer many specific tasks you need to perform, few checklists offer a broad overview of things that airports, airlines, and other aviation service providers should do to augment audit performance.

The purpose of aviation safety management systems (SMS) is to continuously improve safety performance while also improving the business' operational processes. This continuous improvement is expected to be realized by:

What Is Safety Culture in Aviation SMS

There are many possible definitions of safety culture in aviation safety management systems (SMS). Generic definitions focus on:

• Attitudes;
• Behaviors; and
• Values.

While these points certainly are a core part of safety culture, they are also unhelpfully vague. What is more helpful is: what does safety culture look like in the operational environment?

Definition of Aviation SMS Safety Assurance

In November 2006, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) mandated that all member states implement formal aviation safety management systems (SMS). To facilitate compliance, ICAO guided regulatory authorities and aviation service providers with the publication of the Safety Management Manual (SMM), now in the fourth edition as of 2019.

An aviation SMS implementation covers considerable territory, including, but not limited to:

• Safety accountabilities;

Science and Technology in Aviation Business Drive Revenues

Aviation safety management systems (SMS) needlessly continue to remain unprofitable after almost fifteen years.

Your aviation SMS also fails to produce profits. Why?

Science and technology are not applied with equal zeal as other high-tech-aviation systems. SMS economic disappointments are very easily seen in smaller operators with fewer than 500 employees. This inequality of high-technology adoption creates financial hardships for smaller operators without the education or capital to implement expert systems that minimize financial costs and human efforts required to demonstrate regulatory SMS compliance.

Management's Absence Creates SMS Adoption Challenges

Many newly-appointed safety managers try to single-handedly push their organization's aviation safety management systems (SMS) to success. Safety managers are hired to perform an ambitious undertaking that is not heartily welcomed by the entire organization.

SMS implementations require consistent change management activities. These activities naturally induce frustration and resistance to change.

What Is Proactive Safety Culture in Aviation SMS

The purpose of an aviation safety management system (SMS) is to formally manage operational safety risk to as low as reasonably practical (ALARP). This objective will never be fully achieved unless aviation service providers maintain healthy safety reporting numbers.

In order to optimize safety reporting metrics, an operator must have a safety culture that continually promotes safety and encourages employees to report every potential safety issue, whether the issue is real or imagined.

What Is Risk Analysis in Aviation SMS?

Unless you are new to aviation safety management systems (SMS), safety professionals recognize that the objective of aviation SMS is to:

• Proactively manage safety using documented risk management processes;
• Identify potential operational safety hazards;
• Evaluate risk;
• Implement control measures that mitigate identified risk; and