Aviation safety management systems (SMS) implementation takes a long time to fully mature, usually three to five years if you are lucky.
Once there, your SMS will continually be tweaked and updated, which of course requires further implementation and monitoring.
Topics: 1-Safety Policy
Identifying hazards is a big part of implementing a Safety Management System or SMS. Most of us assume that we know what a hazard is. It’s not a complicated word, we’re pretty sure we know what it means. No problem, right?
Problem is, hazard might be one of the most misunderstood words in the English language. Probably because a lot of definitions you’ll find say something like what Google tells us, “a danger or risk.” From this, we could gather that a hazard and a risk are the same.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
While it is normal to say that safety culture is something you should pay attention to, it might be better to say that safety culture are things you should pay attention to.
Safety culture in aviation organizations is more than just one thing. There are multiple “types” of safety culture.
The five faces of safety culture you should consider are:
A KPI key performance indicator remains the most effective means to communicate and monitor aviation service providers' goals and objectives related to the aviation safety management system (SMS). These dashboards offer the most value when they are:
Topics: Key Performance Indicators
If you want to practice reactive, proactive, and predictive risk management in aviation safety management systems (SMS), you first and foremost need to understand the difference between these types of risk management in modern aviation operations.
Understanding what each type of risk management is does not involve just understanding the “conceptual” difference, but how each practice differs in the actual operational environment.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
The Safety Risk Management process (SRM) is where you outline and document your entire operational risk profile. Completing your SRM process is a major part of Phase 3 of SMS implementation.
Once you complete the initial documentation of your SRM process, you will need to continuously update it as new “inputs” are identified or implemented in your SMS,
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
Knowing best practices for hazard reporting in aviation safety management systems (SMS) is an attempt to better attain the goals of hazard reporting.
What are the goals of hazard reporting?
There are three main objectives:
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
Aviation safety managers are tasked with a Safety Assurance (SA) element labeled "Continuous Improvement." Not many aviation safety management systems (SMS) training courses go into much detail about "Continuous Improvement" which leaves many safety managers confusedly scratching their heads.
Safety Assurance is the third ICAO component or pillar of an ICAO-compliant SMS framework. Annex 19 - Safety Management and the four components are described in detail in ICAO's Document 9859.
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
Fishbone diagrams are an excellent risk management tool for the root-cause-focused aviation industry.
If you are wondering how to use fishbone diagrams, you first need to know what a fishbone diagram is.
A fishbone diagram derives its name from its fish-like appearance, with a head and several fins. Each “fin” or “branch” of a fishbone diagram describes a different element of the failure. The head of the fishbone describes the risk.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
Setting goals and objectives for your aviation safety management system (SMS) is a requirement, i.e., not optional.
Become accustomed to this requirement. Embrace it. Realize organizational value from this requirement and stop squandering an excellent opportunity to improve operations and show that the SMS can become the promised "profit driver."
Don't believe you can pencil whip this requirement like so many safety managers today.
Topics: Key Performance Indicators
These two on-demand videos offer:
