The objectives of every aviation safety management system (SMS) is to:
From a regulator's perspective, they are primarily interested in:
"Continuous improvement of the SMS" is one of the three primary elements of the Safety Assurance component of an aviation SMS. The safety assurance component on an SMS was purposefully designed into the aviation SMS framework to ensure that the SMS continues to function as designed, including:
Continuous improvement’s goal is the constant progression of safety performance in a positive direction as the SMS implementation continues. As every safety professional knows, an SMS doesn't simply fall from the sky and your SMS problems are magically fixed. An SMS implementation is the result of years worth of planning and modifying organizational attitudes toward the way business is conducted in the safest way possible.
Safety performance is a combination of:
Now, “progression of safety performance" is an extremely important phrase. Continuous improvement is a daunting – and sometimes demoralizing – thought because of the nagging question:
The key component of continuous improvement is not that performance metrics get better forever, but that:
At a certain point, areas of aviation SMS performance (i.e., safety reporting culture or responsiveness to addressing safety concerns), will max out to eventually offer diminished returns on the invested effort. After all, there will always be a finite number of safety concerns that can be identified and reported by employees and stakeholders. Furthermore, there will be a limit to the "level of safety" that can be gained by speeding up your SMS risk management "machine."
In the examples above, if you were focusing on being responsive to managing safety concerns, there will also come a point where your SMS is "good enough." After all, if you are closing reported safety issues within seven to fourteen days, what noticeable improvement in operational safety occurs when you shave these numbers down even further? Maybe none. However, if your risk management processes require 60 to 90 days to manage reported safety concerns, this "lackadaisical attitude" may adversely affect your safety culture.
Your aviation SMS will always be affected by the law of diminishing returns. This is good, so don't be overly concerned in the long run about processing hundreds or thousands of reported safety issues with no end in sight. However, there will be no end to the changing safety landscape – and this is the "ever-evolving environmental realm" that an aviation SMS' continuous improvement element addresses. In this context, continuous improvement aligns very closely with how well your organization can manage change.
The primary aim of continuous improvement in aviation SMS is to establish:
The aims of continuous improvement in aviation SMS should be applied to three general areas of operations:
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are among your primary tools for demonstrating continuous improvement. Selecting KPIs is process-driven in response to your company's safety goals and objectives. Goals and objectives will naturally evolve and adapt in response to changing environmental needs, both internal and external.
So as long as the following two things are being done, KPIs should always reflect the most important areas of continuous improvement for your company. These two things are:
Of course, the presence of carefully chosen KPIs reflects active organizational safety performance monitoring. There will be other areas of your SMS implementation that need to be monitored as well, which are covered under other continuous improvement activities.
Beyond selecting good KPIs, several other activities help you demonstrate continuous improvement of the aviation SMS. Some of these activities include:
All tools can be utilized to demonstrate the scope of your continuous improvement activities that are:
Here are a few best practices when it comes to continuous improvement in aviation safety management systems:
All of the above points should be integrated as a standard of continuous improvement. However, demonstrating continuous improvement over prolonged periods of time can be difficult unless the operator has an effective SMS data management strategy. I'm sorry, but spreadsheets are cumbersome, and the best tool to demonstrate continuous improvement is a low-cost, commercially available SMS database.
Safety performance monitoring at the employee level is probably the most overlooked element of continuous improvement because it's hard to implement. Most aviation service providers don't have a robust SMS data management strategy to easily collect, store, and retrieve safety data.
There is a reason that EASA requires that operators store their reported safety data in databases and not in spreadsheets. Spreadsheets may be ubiquitous in every business enterprise; however, they are not suitable for storing dynamic safety data and easily mining this data for trends.
If you are not convinced, there are three SMS risk management activities that you will not want to perform, year after year, using a spreadsheet, and they are:
If your organization is not using an SMS database to store and manage SMS documentation requirements, I'm certain that your safety manager becomes increasingly anxious whenever there is an SMS audit, or whenever upper management requests charts and reports to monitor safety performance.
If your company is very small, demonstrating continuous improvement becomes more difficult. This is unavoidable because smaller organizations lack the volume of safety inputs, i.e., reported safety issues and audit findings.
Very small companies are not expected to demonstrate continuous improvement at the same level of detail as mid-sized and larger operators that are exposed to higher levels of risk. However, this does not exempt smaller companies from demonstrating some semblance of continuous improvement. SMS requirements remain the same for all aviation service providers. The complexity of your SMS is relative to the size and complexity of your operations.
If you become anxious thinking about how you can effectively demonstrate continuous improvement to aviation SMS auditors and other SMS professionals, I urge you to reconsider your SMS data management strategy. If you have not yet adopted an SMS database, you should not delay. Companies with more than forty employees or smaller companies with high employee turnover will benefit from the adoption of an SMS database to
To learn how your company can benefit from an SMS database, please watch these short demo videos:
Last updated March 2024.