SMS Pro Aviation Safety Software Blog 4 Airlines & Airports

Building Hazard Reporting Culture Through Convenience

If you want to improve your aviation SMS program’s hazard reporting culture, the first thing you should do is to see if you can make hazard reporting easier.

“Easier” is a tricky word.

Definition of Acceptable Level of Safety in Aviation SMS

Acceptable Level of Safety (ALoS) in Aviation SMS is how you define the maximum level of risk you are willing to accept as “reasonable.”

Why Quality Management Is So Important for Safety

Quality management systems (QMS) are the big brother of safety management systems (SMS). They are often depicted as having conflicting interests.

Unfortunately, this is true in many organizations because the bottom line (money) is pushed more than safety.

QMS and SMS don’t have to be in conflict. In fact, if given the time and resources, they can integrate and significantly strengthen your organization’s:

Definition of Risk and Risk Occurrence

The concept of risk changes depending on which context you use it. This is not comfortable for many safety managers who insist that risk is simply one thing.

It’s important that safety professionals keep an open mind to variations in how different safety terms are used.

What Is Safety Manager Performance?

Safety manager performance is the ability of safety managers to drive performance in aviation SMS. “Drive performance” can mean either:

• Active improvement in different areas of the SMS;
• Active sustaining of quality performance; and
• Active mitigation of safety issues.

Why Department Head Charts Are Particularly Important

Traditionally, department heads are the individuals responsible for managing corrective and preventive actions associated with reported issues.

Managing an issue involves making sure that corrective-preventative actions (CPAs) are implemented appropriately.

When We Say Promote Safety, What Are We Actually Promoting

Safety promotion plays a crucial role in your aviation safety culture. So when we talk about promoting your SMS, we are really talking about how to build a safety culture in your organization.

By far, safety promotion is often the most neglected portion of SMS.

What the Issue Management Life Cycle Is

The life cycle of hazard and risk occurrence (including other types of occurrences) encompasses the entirety of an adverse event to final consequences.

The process that follows the hazard/risk occurrence life cycle is the issue management life cycle.

The issue management life cycle includes all the steps management takes from identifying an issue to fixing the issue (and beyond this, monitoring the fix).

What Is the Life Cycle of Hazard and Risk Occurrence?

The life cycle of hazard and risk occurrence is the entirety of an adverse event that happens in your company.

This life cycle has distinct stages that you can identify in any given event.

What Is Employee Safety Performance?

Roughly four out of every five aviation safety programs struggle with employee involvement. In many ways, the struggle is linked to the economics of SMS.

“Economics of SMS” is simply another way of saying that incentives play a crucial role in employee safety performance.