Improving your aviation safety management system's (SMS) effectiveness doesn’t always have to be a long-term effort. Just as with any complex initiative, there will always be low-hanging fruit in your SMS implementation that can add considerable value without requiring extravagant expenses or investments in time.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
Aviation safety management systems (SMS) are not just for large airlines and airports with high traffic volumes.
Small aviation service providers are in just as much need of implementing formal aviation SMS as are larger operations. All operators use the same SMS implementation guidelines as larger operators; however, they are not evaluated equally, as larger operators logically fall under higher regulator scrutiny than smaller operators, as the volume of their business implies greater risk.
Topics: Aviation SMS Implementation
Aviation safety training and education are essential building blocks to develop performant safety cultures. This should be among the first elements to scrutinize whenever employees are involved in safety accidents or incidents.
Healthy aviation safety culture results in safety performance.
Other than the bureaucratic elements of SMS, you could even make an argument that safety culture is safety performance. In aviation safety management systems (SMS), safety performance monitoring and measurement are required.
How do you measure safety culture performance?
How do you determine safety culture performance is improving?
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
Fatigue is a top safety priority. Even moderate levels of fatigue can cause employees to demonstrate the same mental and physical capabilities as an intoxicated person.
Discussing fatigue in aviation safety management systems (SMS) becomes interesting when one considers the onus for managing fatigue is on multiple parties, namely:
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
The majority of aviation service providers are required to implement formal aviation safety management systems (SMS) per the November 2006 ICAO mandate. This is a requirement. SMS implementation is not optional for most operators.
Just as the SMS implementation is not optional, employees do not have the luxury of shirking their duties and responsibilities to the SMS.
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
It is a common misnomer that trend analysis in risk management is used to forecast future performance. This understanding of trend analysis is both reductive and distorts the purpose of trend analysis in aviation safety management systems (SMS).
According to the FAA, the objective of aviation SMS implementations is to:
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
Occasionally aviation safety managers will want to do a turn and pivot with the direction of their aviation safety management system (SMS) implementation. What this looks like is restructuring.
When safety managers decide to restructure an aviation SMS implementation, it means changing and updating the bureaucratic structure of the SMS and possibly some of the SMS' documented risk management processes.
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
We are generally aware of the more straightforward indicators of unhealthy aviation safety management systems (SMS).
Things like:
There are several other data-supported indicators of course, but you get the idea.
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
A true aviation SMS implementation takes years and a lot of hard work to effect lasting change. SMS implementations can take considerably longer due to:
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
These two on-demand videos offer:
