Aviation safety management systems (SMS) documentation is probably the most critical component of aviation SMS design.
Documentation must be clear, accurate, current, and easy to access. Documentation reflects SMS compliance and SMS performance.
Though "documentation" is a simple idea, making sure your documentation is well managed is quite difficult in actual practice. This is because:
The goals of SMS documentation are:
A helpful way to understand how to document your SMS is the hierarchy of SMS documentation, shown below.
SMS documentation has 4 distinct sections:
Any piece of SMS documentation falls into one of the points. However, they do not all require equal attention. They also don’t require an equal amount of documentation, hence the pyramid of documentation.
The pyramid shows that:
The top tier in SMS documentation is SMS policy documentation. This is:
Best practices for documenting your SMS policy are:
Safety policy documentation will be of similar size in both small and large organizations, as policies will include highly similar elements. When writing your policies, make sure to write them in language that the majority of employees will understand. A flowery, long-winded policy that was drafted by the company's "wordsmith" may lack authenticity and have the unintended consequence of breeding suspicion instead of engendering trust.
The second tier of SMS documentation is procedure documentation. You may see procedures also called "processes" in SMS regulatory guidance. Procedures (processes) will require more detailed documentation than policy.
Best practices for SMS procedure documentation is to make sure that each procedure shows
Larger organizations will have many more procedures than smaller organizations. When reviewing your safety procedures, make sure that:
Your procedures should include things like:
SMS work instructions are documentation elements that:
Each SMS procedure will most likely have multiple work instructions. For example, a process for managing reported issues may have job tasks for:
Best practices for documenting work tasks are:
The last two points are especially important. Employees assigned to roles performing particular "specialty" tasks are often experts in the best way that a task can be done. The safety manager’s role is to make sure that the task is being done in a way that complies with safety policies and safety requirements.
SMS records will compose the vast majority of your SMS documentation, especially as your SMS ages. SMS records documentation includes:
SMS audits will generally investigate much further into your SMS records than any other area of documentation. Most findings occur in their area of documentation as well. The best practices for good SMS documents are:
Systems that follow these points will have nearly all of their SMS records managed automatically. An SMS database is undoubtedly a good investment and reduces risk to your SMS. If you don't have an SMS database and are relying on spreadsheets, you should talk to the accountable executive and communicate the risk to the aviation SMS.
If you belong to a very small company or are only interested in "checking the box" and having a "paper SMS," then it does not make good business sense to invest in an SMS database. Don't judge too hastily those who only want to check the box. Occasionally, this makes complete sense, but usually not for those who expect to be operating within the same environment for more than three to five years.
One of the biggest challenges faced by safety teams is to organize SMS documentation for later use. "Later use" may mean:
I'm sure you can think of other cases where you may be called upon to demonstrate:
There are many SMS documentation requirements that must be managed properly or your SMS will suffer audit findings. Take your time and review these documentation requirements before you proceed too far in your SMS. After reviewing these requirements, you may want to reconsider your SMS data management strategies.
If you are starting an aviation SMS, one of the first tasks as a safety manager is to determine how you will manage all this data. As you know, your accountable executive is responsible for ensuring the SMS is properly implemented and performed in all areas of the organization. Properly implemented also means "properly documented."
You may have heard that "if it isn't documented, it didn't happen." This is very true when it comes time to face SMS auditors.
Do you want your accountable executive to rely on paper and spreadsheets to manage all the SMS requirements? I believe that if accountable executives REALLY understood how much documentation an aviation SMS generates, then there would be less resistance to adopting SMS database tools to properly account for all this required documentation. This should be one of your talking points when you seek adequate budget support for the SMS.
See in person how SMS documentation requirements are fulfilled using an SMS database.
Last updated April 2024.