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

A Culture of Respect

In order to understand the idea of safety culture within the aviation industry, we must first understand the respect attributed to:

• Pilots;
• Mechanics;
• Controllers;
• Dispatchers; and
• All others needed to make the system function.

What Are Underlying Causes in Aviation SMS

Underlying causes in aviation safety management systems (SMS) are the bridge between reactive and proactive risk management.

Underlying causes are the “input” for safety issues because they reinforce the actions and behaviors that cause incidents to happen.

Managerial Style Is Critical for Safety Managers

How aviation safety managers conduct oversight is extremely important for the success or failure of the aviation safety management system (SMS).

The particular management style of a safety manager determines how willingly employees will interact with aviation SMS. Will they sincerely accept the demands placed on them by the SMS? Or will they rebel silently and look for ways to subvert the SMS?

What kind of style do you use as a safety manager?

Which Issues Should Be Reviewed?

Different organizations will have different requirements when they review safety issues. Whether or not you are reviewing low-risk issues is up to you. While we recommend reviewing all issues, the reality is that due to time and resource constraints, this is not always feasible.

What Is an Emergency Response Plan (ERP)

The actions employees take immediately in response to an emergency will greatly affect the outcome of the emergency. In such situations, employees’ actions may largely be the deciding factor between catastrophic consequences and a scary but benign outcome.

Consequences can be

• financial,
• environment,
• material, or
• personal (i.e.) loss of life.

Monitor KPIs in Existing Aviation SMS

Setting up and monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) in existing aviation safety management systems (SMS) can be a daunting task. This especially applies to first-time safety managers or safety managers new to a company who are taking over an existing aviation SMS.

Such safety managers have many questions like:

What Is Safety Performance Monitoring and Measurement

Safety performance monitoring is an essential component of aviation safety management systems (SMS). And by “essential,” performance monitoring is like your SMS implementation's immune system.

When performance monitoring is not handled well, your safety program will wither. Worse yet, your operating certificate may be in jeopardy.

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,