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

Understanding Safety Policy

Many of the words and phrases used in aviation SMS have very specific meanings beyond those found in the dictionary. Hazard and risk, for example, have definitions that go beyond Merriam-Webster’s definition.

What Are Classifications in Aviation Risk Management

In SMS, it’s extremely useful to organize reported issues by classifying them with classifications.

A classification is simply a unit of organization. By “unit of organization,” we are talking about a short phrase that describes the safety issue in one way. This issue can be described in terms of:

• It’s “type” of problem, such as “Aircraft damage in hangar”;
• It’s a central issue (hazard), such as "Runway excursion";

The Real Goals of Aviation SMS Training

Organization’s with successful aviation safety management systems (SMS) training strategies universally have very well performing aviation SMS. End of story.

Training can make or break a company.

Are Your Key Performance Indicators Out of Control?

Most aviation safety managers never went to business school. Otherwise, there would be fewer problems and mistakes relating to key performance indicators (KPI) management.

After spending over a dozen years providing SMS implementation support to aviation service providers around the world,

4 Aviation Safety Management Practices to Apply in Aviation Maintenance

In aviation maintenance, as in all other aspects of the aviation sector, safety is paramount. 4 safety management practices that can be applied to make any maintenance operation safer are:

• Use of tangible metrics to measure effectiveness
• Open communication between management and operational employees;

Customizing Your SMS Implementation Plan

Aviation companies of all shapes and sizes can benefit from a safety management system or SMS, but when faced with implementing one, small organizations can easily find themselves overwhelmed by the requirements.

What Is Safety Risk Management Process

Your Safety Risk Management process is how you design your SMS.

First you design and document your SMS, and then update it as your SMS and/or environment changes.

Developing your SRM process, and in turn, designing your SMS happens largely in Phase 3 of aviation SMS Implementation.

Realizing Value From Key Performance Indicators

KPIs allow managers to focus on activities that are important to their operations. Understandably, many of these activities may also be important to their civil aviation authority.

Safety managers today are expected to come up with a list of their company's KPIs. After creating their list, they need to track them religiously with the objective of identifying trends and focusing risk management efforts on identified problem areas.

Do You Have the Aviation Safety Manager Job?

If you have been a safety manager for years now, do you remember when you first started? So many questions, such as: Where do I start?

It can be frightening to be suddenly assigned as the safety manager when you know very little about what the "safety manager" does every day.

What Is This SMS Thing?

What’s the first thing you do when you want to answer a question? You Google it, right? Well, when you Google "aviation SMS", this is what the FAA will tell you: