SMS Pro Aviation Safety Software Blog 4 Airlines & Airports

What Are Safety Training and Education?

Aviation safety training and education is an essential building block for safety culture. Safety culture is understandably important for aviation service providers that are investing in aviation safety management systems (SMS). Without a healthy safety culture, SMS will never deliver the expected results and money will be wasted.

Accountable executives and safety teams must consider whether poor performance of their aviation SMS is a result of a lack of training, or a deeper, more sinister safety culture issue.

What Is Risk in Aviation SMS Implementations

Risk in aviation safety management systems (SMS) is a tricky subject. Not only is it treated differently in different organizations, but safety professionals tend to get up in arms in front of differing opinions.

The truth is that “risk” is a terribly nebulous word and concept, with multiple ways to use it. What’s important is NOT that you “know what risk is” so much as you “define what risk means to your organization.”

Here are multiple ways that “risk” is used in the risk management industry,

What REALLY Is Continuous Improvement in Aviation SMS?

The objectives of every aviation safety management system (SMS) is to:

• Proactively manage safety in a formal, structured manner;
• Identify potential operational hazards;
• Determine risk to operations and affected stakeholders; and
• Implement control measures to mitigate identified risks.

Safety Policy Greatly Affects Safety Culture and Safety Performance

"Safety Policy" is a major asset for building an effective safety culture in aviation safety management systems (SMS). An aviation SMS is a complex system of interrelated components and elements, and "Safety Policy" is one of the four SMS components (or pillars). For a quick review, the four SMS components are:

• Safety Policy;
• Safety Risk Management (SRM);
• Safety Assurance (SA); and

What Is Safety Promotion Component of 4 Pillars?

Aviation safety management systems (SMS) have been required by most aviation service providers since the November 2006 ICAO mandate. To add structure to SMS implementations and to educate safety professionals, ICAO provides SMS implementation guidance in the form of a Safety Management Manual (SMM), now in the fourth edition.

In the SMM, aviation SMS implementation requirements are logically grouped under four components (also known as four pillars):

What Risk Management Decisions Are

Risk management decision-making processes will dictate the success of your aviation safety management system (SMS). Period.

Every change, no matter how small, arises from a risk management decision. Decision-making processes in risk management programs are often seen as a formal,

Importance of Investigations in Aviation Risk Management

Investigations are the cornerstone of quality assurance efforts in aviation safety management systems (SMS). They are an attempt to answer why and how safety events occur. Investigations also commonly occur in response to reactive and proactive risk management activities after safety issues are submitted through the SMS' safety reporting system.

Different organizations use the term investigation differently depending on the context of the investigatory activity and common risk management practices within the organization.

Characteristics of a Sustainable SMS Implementation

Sustainability is a modern buzz word, and aviation safety management systems (SMS) are no exception. Sustainable SMS implementations are those that survive

• upper management personnel changes,
• safety manager changes, and
• high volume of employee turnover.

The question every safety manager and/or upper manager needs to ask is, does my SMS implementation achieve these sustainable goals?

Perform Risk Analysis to Meet Oversight Compliance Expectations

It hardly needs to be said that performing risk analysis in aviation safety management systems (SMS) is absolutely essential. There are many opportunities in the aviation SMS' risk management processes for safety professionals and operational department heads to determine whether the potential consequences of conducting operations in the presence of hazards remain either:

• acceptable; or
• acceptable with additional mitigation strategies applied; or
• unacceptable, requiring operations to cease.

What Is Safety Risk Management in Aviation SMS?

Depending on the context and your educational background, safety risk management in aviation safety management systems (SMS) can mean a couple of different things:

1. Second component of ICAO's four pillars; and
2. Processes to identify, describe, monitor, and manage hazards affecting safe aviation operations.

In both instances, the objectives remain the same, which ensures that risks surrounding safe operations are controlled.