Proactive safety management is often upheld as the second highest form of risk management after "predictive risk management." This is because being able to demonstrate proactive risk management activities generally doesn’t happen until an aviation safety management system (SMS) matures beyond Phase 2.
The primary goals of proactive management of safety are:
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
An aviation safety management system (SMS) functions almost like a living, breathing entity. The SMS' required safety assurance processes facilitate improvements through continual verification and follow-up actions. Regardless of your SMS maturity level, the SMS continually evolves.
Every SMS has many moving parts that work together to reduce risk and comply with regulatory requirements. These individual components can exhibit healthy signs, as well as symptoms of underlying problems.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
You can’t really overestimate the value and usefulness of having high-quality hazard reporting forms.
Hazard reporting underpins your ability to acquire data, which is the basis of most of the continuous improvement changes you make to your aviation SMS.
Good hazard reporting forms provide:
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
Fishbone diagrams are perhaps the best risk management tool in aviation safety management systems (SMS) for gaining a comprehensive understanding of root causes of safety incidents.
A fishbone diagram derives its name from its fishlike appearance, with a head of several fins.
Each “fin” or “branch” of a fishbone diagram describes a different category of the situation, such as the categories “Human” or “Machine.” The head of the fishbone describes the risk.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
One of the most ubiquitous problems in aviation risk management is the misuse of commonly used words, in particular “hazard” and “risk.” Often, these two items are either:
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
If you put 10 safety managers in a room and asked them what root cause analysis was, they would have ten different answers.
Safety professionals all say that they perform root cause analysis at some time during their risk management process. In their minds, that’s probably true.
But root cause analysis for one safety manager would not necessarily be the root cause analysis for another manager.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
Management of change in aviation safety management systems (SMS) is essential for managing operational or organizational change. Safety teams are typically involved in the management of change (MOC) exercises.
There is often confusion among new aviation safety managers when they are confronted with answering auditors' questions regarding MOC in their SMS.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
Aviation safety managers are tasked to ensure that the safety risks encountered at their operations are controlled to as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP).
Modern aviation safety risk management includes:
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
The best way to recognize and mitigate immediate risks associated with aviation hazards is by using the PAVE checklist to analyze your current safety environment. PAVE is an excellent and expedient flight risk assessment tool (FRAT).
Each risk scenario can be grouped under a part of the PAVE checklist and can help with recognizing both the hazard and the need to react for a particular mission.
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
Hazard identification in aviation SMS is the baseline performance needed for a successful safety program. It is the first element of the Safety Risk Management component of the 4 Pillars of aviation safety.
At face value, hazard identification is fairly simple: awareness and recognition of potential danger in the operational environment. In aviation safety management systems (SMS), hazard identification is complicated by the fact that:
Topics: 2-Safety Risk Management
These two on-demand videos offer:
