SMS Pro Aviation Safety Software Blog 4 Airlines & Airports

Steps for How to Manage Hazard Reports

The 4 I’s of Issue Management are a useful, high-level way of looking at the process and steps for managing hazard reports.

In terms of how to manage hazard reports, these 4 basic steps in the process are:

• Ingest an issue through various hazard reporting methods;
• Investigate the causes of the issue, such as the root causes and Human Factors;

Why Fatigue Monitoring Matters

Fatigue is the sixth of the Dirty Dozen Human Factors.

Fatigue has traditionally received a lot of attention from flight crew due to the dramatic effects of the different types of fatigue on pilot and cabin crew performance.

One of the primary challenges associated with fatigue in the workplace is that the symptoms of fatigue are other Human Factors.

Why Identifying the Difference Between Hazards and Risks Matters

One of the biggest problems in aviation risk management is the misuse or misunderstanding of aviation risk management definitions and concepts. The most common mistakes happen when it comes to the idea of a hazard vs risk.

Often, these two items are either:

• Used interchangeably, as if they were the same thing;
• Misidentified, where a safety manager misidentifies a risk occurrence as a hazard occurrence; or
• The terms are used much too broadly.

What Is a Hazard

Hazards are central to the entire process of developing safe operational environments.

A hazard fulfills the following:

• Is a dangerous condition, such as a situation, behavior, object, etc., that poses an unacceptable level of danger;

Definition of Risk

Risk, in its general form, is what is most often cited when discussing the definition of risk, and the idea of risk.

Risk in general is:

• The composite of severity and likelihood used to rank risk;
• Used in Risk Assessment; and
• Generally spoken in the context of, “The risk of [something bad].”

How Aviation Safety Program Becomes Global Standard

The human spirit is a restless one, always seeking to push the boundaries of possibility.

Since the Wright brothers' first successful flight occurred only in 1903, aviation is relatively new to humankind. The nature of flight challenges people to come up with better ways to deal with risk.

The global standard, SMS, supports the aviation industry through

Definition of Risk and Risk Occurrence

The concept of risk changes depending on which context you use it. This is not comfortable for many safety managers who insist that risk is simply one thing.

It’s important that safety professionals keep an open mind to variations in how different safety terms are used.

Awareness of variation improves communication and understanding of the risk management process.

There are two main contexts in which the word risk is used:

What Is Safety Manager Performance?

Safety manager performance is the ability of safety managers to drive performance in aviation SMS. “Drive performance” can mean either:

• Active improvement in different areas of the SMS;
• Active sustaining of quality performance; and
• Active mitigation of safety issues.

What the Issue Management Life Cycle Is

The life cycle of hazard and risk occurrence (including other types of occurrences) encompasses the entirety of an adverse event to final consequences.

The process that follows the hazard/risk occurrence life cycle is the issue management life cycle.

The issue management life cycle includes all the steps management takes from identifying an issue to fixing the issue (and beyond this, monitoring the fix).

What Is Management of Change in Aviation SMS

Management of change in aviation SMS is a formal process for implementing system-level changes in aviation SMS programs.

By system-level, we are talking about a change that is significant enough to affect the design of your SMS.

Small changes only affect one small part of your SMS, such as single risk control, and are implemented with corrective-preventative actions (CPAs). System changes are a higher level of change that affects multiple areas of operations.