SMS Pro Aviation Safety Software Blog 4 Airlines & Airports

Using Trending Charts in Aviation SMS

There are several times each year when managers are interested in trending charts coming from their aviation safety management systems (SMS). These times include during:

• Safety performance monitoring; and
• Determination of continuous improvement progress.

Trending is perhaps among the most difficult tasks for safety managers when they don't have automated tools and databases to capture hazard reports and classify these reported issues.

What Are Best Practices for Risk Mitigation in Aviation Safety Management

The term risk mitigation, broadly speaking, means to try and prevent danger. You might think of it as “reducing exposure.” In general, there are four best practices employed in aviation SMS to mitigate risk, and they include:

• Risk Avoidance;
• Risk Transference;
• Risk Segmentation; and
• Risk Likelihood Reduction.

Definition of Risk Tolerance

Risk tolerance is simply how much risk you are willing to accept. High-risk tolerance is generally not a good idea because it means that you are willing to “tolerate” or “accept” a high degree of risk for performing tasks. Low-risk tolerance is generally good because it means you err on the side of safety; if it’s risky, don’t do it.

Risk tolerance is something that happens on an organizational level, and an individual level:

• Organizational: how much risk is your organization willing to accept for any safety concern without performing mitigating actions; and

What Is Safety Performance Monitoring in Aviation SMS

Safety performance monitoring in aviation SMS is the primary way you will assess your safety program. This assessment happens in two different ways:

• Passively, such as in the case of high, system-level performance monitoring, such as trend identification; and
• Actively, such as in the case of daily performance monitoring of safety issues, including their associated hazards, risks, and control measures identified during issue management.

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.

Problems Monitoring Control Measures to Reduce Risk

An SMS provides management with a framework to facilitate decision-making and to dynamically shape the operating environment. Continuous improvement is a core element of every mature SMS.

Continuously monitoring environments in which your employees work remains crucial to optimal performance in all aspects of your organization's business, including safety.

Purpose of Risk Analysis

In aviation SMS, you analyze risk to break an issue down into individual, controllable parts. Based on your analysis, you can assess the safety issue, and understand both what actions need to be taken, and what safety factors need to be better controlled.

During risk analysis, the issue should be broken down into the following parts:

• What the issue in question is – is the reported issue a hazard, a negative outcome, etc.

What Is a Risk Assessment

A risk assessment is a method you use to rank the risk of safety issues. You will commonly perform risk assessments on reported safety issues and other identified hazards. Assessments are integral to helping you establish whether or not a given issue is within an Acceptable Level of Safety.

Risk assessments use a risk matrix to create composite number/letter grades based on:

What Is Safety Assurance Process in Aviation SMS

Safety Assurance in aviation SMS is a process that helps you ensure that your SMS is functioning as designed. Safety Assurance is most closely associated with Phase 4 of SMS implementation. Implementing Phase 4 largely involves implementing to:

• Monitor safety performance;
• Assess safety performance; and
• Practice continuous improvement.

Problems With Aviation Safety Departments vs Operations

Aviation service providers are in business to provide a service. While some providers are government-funded, most offer their services to achieve common strategic business objectives, namely:

• Increased market share;
• Increased financial or physical resources; or
• Innovation to create additional products or services.

Every aviation service provider works with finite resources to deliver their services to align with their business objectives.