Enhancing Aviation Safety: Expert Insights, Tips, and Updates from SMS-Pro

What Is Change Management

Management of change in aviation SMS is a formal process for facilitating changes in safety programs. Usually, this process is instigated when required changes are going to affect higher-level, systems in the SMS. Smaller changes are handled with corrective actions.

What Is Plan Do Check Act (PDCA)

Plan Do Check Act is a simple but effective process to use when implementing risk controls through corrective-preventative actions. The PDCA process is initiated after you discover some deficiency/weakness in your SMS that poses an unacceptable level of safety, such as after an aviation SMS audit, reported safety concern, or trend analysis.

#3 of the Dirty Dozen Is “Lack of Knowledge”

So, just what is a Lack of Knowledge?

Any competent human factors instructor will tell you that "Lack of knowledge" is when you lack the knowledge to complete a task correctly. Many new employees have what we call a “Lack of Knowledge” or lack of experience.

Let’s face it, in these times of ever-changing technology,

Plans and Challenges of Implementation

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.

What’s in a Name?

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.

Types of Aviation Safety Culture

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:

1. Safety commitment
2. Safety behavior

Presenting Key Performance Indicators to Managers

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:

• Focused on Organizational Key Objectives;
• Free From Clutter;
• Easily Personalized for Individual Managers;
• Secured From Unauthorized Personnel;

What It Means to Practice Reactive, Proactive, and Predictive Risk Management

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.

What Is Safety Risk Management Process

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,

What Are Goals for Best Practices of Hazard Reporting

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: