Change management in aviation safety management systems (SMS) is an extremely important topic. Formal processes to manage change have become important not just for safety performance, but also for demonstrating to SMS auditors that your company knows how to formally manage change as your operations are exposed to changing environmental conditions.
You can bet that poorly managed or documented change management processes will result in an audit finding. The reason is that change management:
In aviation SMS guidance materials, we often see management of change (MOC) listed under the either Safety Assurance or Safety Risk Management pillars. Either classification can be true depending on the context of the conversation or the risk management activity.
Regardless of which SMS pillar management of change belongs to, the fact is that change management has increasingly been used and inspected by oversight agencies as a process that very closely resembles the safety risk management (SRM) process, which flows something like:
That being said, change management definitely has safety assurance (SA) qualities, which is because it works best when used to bridge the gap between SRM and SA.
The Safety Risk Management Process in aviation SMS implementations has four distinct goals:
The basic process of SRM is to:
This constant process keeps “SMS implementations on their toes” so to speak. It allows the aviation SMS to adapt to changing conditions by:
The end result should be a very high level of documentation that aligns with your "operational risk profile." This overused phrase simply means the “personality” of the area of operations under consideration.
The Safety Assurance Process is the monitoring and validation process of SRM. Safety Assurance puts the documentation, controls, and activities of SRM into action. Some common SRM activities are:
The SA and SRM processes work together in a symbiotic relationship. If the data, safety reporting, and risk management processes are not performing, then the SRM process will be used to make safety changes. These safety changes, in turn, should be naturally validated during the SA process as the affected systems are carefully monitored. This process ensures ad infinitum.
Management of change is an essential link between the SA and SRM processes. MOC helps both processes communicate as a feedback loop in SA processes supports organizational change introduced in the SRM processes. As discussed, the process of change management follows a similar path to SRM. However, the outcomes and results of change management:
To make this clear, change management:
For example, during change management, one of the first activities is to identify hazards (SRM activity). However, in the event that new hazards are found, the outcomes are that:
Both of these activities happen at the same time. These exact same outcome activities occur with:
Changes will be analyzed, documented, and accounted for in the process of safety risk management, and monitored with SA activities.
It’s critical to understand that MOC is an SRM activity that bridges the gap between SA and SRM because:
The third bullet point is especially important. Regardless of the quality of your change management, if an auditor detects any discrepancies, if you can’t quite “remember” why a choice was made, or if you can’t clearly explain your MOC process and how the parts relate to SA and SRM, you can count on a finding.
So be very clear during MOC:
If you do this and document well, count on strong audit performance and high-quality change management operations.
One of the most common audit findings related to the management of change is the lack of a repeatable process for dealing with the management of change projects. What are your processes to:
If your company has trouble answering these questions, or if you have no processes to manage change, then a quick, painless solution is to acquire low-cost, commercially available SMS database software to manage your MOC projects.
An aviation SMS database provides your organization with the necessary tools to effectively manage your safety assurance and safety risk management activities.
These following short demo videos will demonstrate how your company can benefit from a best-in-class SMS database to manage all your SMS documentation requirements.
For more information about performing management of change, you will find these templates helpful:
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Last updated in March 2024.