A hazard in aviation risk management is a condition that poses danger to your organization, and can lead to safety incidents if not mitigated. Hazards are central to the entire risk management process. Often, hazards are either confused with risks (i.e., accidents) and hazardous sources. We will explore what hazardous sources are and how they differ from hazards in this article.
Topics: Risk Management Training
I have recently seen a great rise in the interest and emphasis placed on safety culture in aviation safety management systems (SMS).
Until the last number of years, safety culture has been treated like an appendage or “bonus” to having a performant, successful aviation SMS implementation. Now however, I see safety culture starting to pop up all over the place.
By definition, aviation safety culture is described as reflecting the real commitment to safety, or how people act when no one is watching. With this understanding, the aviation SMS provides the means to achieve safety and the safety culture is the commitment to achieve safety.
This understanding is not good enough. Commitment is just one type of a larger safety culture.
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
Our global economy relies heavily on aviation SMS safety assurance activities to be carried out dutifully by aviation service providers.
The aviation industry is responsible for safely transporting goods and people all over the world. It is also responsible for employing millions of people in all corners of our globe. Without the aviation industry, our global economy would slow significantly.
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
Operational policies and procedures are the bureaucratic backbone to the success of every organization. The policies and procedures are the recipe, or secret sauce that your company uses to deliver its product or service.
The purpose of every aviation safety management system (SMS), besides to obviously improve levels of system safety, is to improve operational processes to a point where risk is mitigated as low as reasonably practical (ALARP). The most practical approach to achieve this goal is for the industry, as a whole, to adopt standards that manage risk in a formal, structured, proven risk management process.
As operators improve their operational processes, systemic risk is logically reduced. A most powerful approach to improve your processes in the shortest time possible is to actively and continuously monitor your policies and procedures.
Topics: Risk Management Software
Over a dozen years (Nov 2006) have passed since ICAO issued its first mandate requiring member states to implement formal, structured aviation safety management systems (SMS).
By now, I would like to believe there is considerable guidance available for aviation service providers to implement their aviation SMS. However, approximately ten percent of the people I encounter in my work as a provider of aviation SMS software request guidance on setting up their aviation SMS.
Topics: 1-Safety Policy
The unfortunate fact is that many managers in aviation safety management systems (SMS) don’t start asking serious questions until their SMS is either “stuck” or in trouble.
Questions and answers need to come at the beginning of SMS implementation. Your answers to fundamental questions about safety management will be a guideline through the entire process of your SMS' implementation.
I can’t help but observe that aviation oversight agencies are constantly reinforcing the idea that there is one right answer to every situation. But consider: there are thousands of organizations who adopt safety programs, and each of them has unique safety needs. Each organization should therefore also have unique answers to questions about SMS. An SMS must support the organization's safety goals and objectives; otherwise, you will end up with a paper SMS that may pass a few SMS audits, but will provide no long-lasting risk mitigation value.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
We run across this time and time again in aviation risk management programs: safety management teams confuse hazards and risks, and consequently also confuses risks and consequences.
To be frank, misunderstanding the difference between these three things can have far reaching repercussions in your ability to practice risk management in your aviation safety management system (SMS).
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
In aviation SMS, you analyze risk in order to identify how a particular issue affects safety. Based off of your analysis, you can assess the safety issue, thereby ranking the level of risk and understanding what, if any, actions you need to take on the issue.
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
Aviation safety management systems (SMS) have many required components that must be monitored and documented regularly. Much of this gathered data assists in enhancing operational processes by providing managers actionable, decision-making value.
To assist with this onerous task, aviation SMS risk management tools are fantastic additions to every SMS' repertoire – if you use them. Their "baked-in" risk management processes assure upper management that your aviation SMS has repeatable processes for best risk management results. Furthermore, these risk management processes are used by many aviation service providers, thereby providing higher levels of confidence in your organization's safety risk management (SRM) and safety assurance (SA) processes.
I’m often surprised at how many operations all but neglect "risk management tools in favor of simply going through the motions of managing their SMS using rudimentary aviation SMS tools, such as spreadsheets.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
I have written before that one of the biggest problems with safety culture in aviation safety management systems (SMS) is the way most of us understand what safety culture is. The problem confounds itself when one considers the other related organizational performance topics, such as:
Often the assumption – without ever really defining it – is that safety culture vaguely involves employees who appreciate and participate in safe behavior. This kind of nebulous understanding doesn’t help anyone actively target problem areas of their aviation SMS' safety performance.
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
These two on-demand videos offer:
