SMS Pro Aviation Safety Software Blog 4 Airlines & Airports

Why Passing an Aviation SMS Audit Is Critical

Over the past dozen years, an aviation SMS audit has become a necessary and commonly difficult task for:

• Airlines;
• Airports;
• Aviation maintenance organizations;
• ATC; and
• Flight schools.

Interesting Discussion on Audits vs. Inspections

The other day, I had a rather interesting discussion with a couple of seasoned aviation safety managers on the topic of aviation safety audits vs inspections.

It took a while to come to a consensus about the primary differences, as well as the ideological implications of each. The discussion got me thinking, and I did some further research.

More than simply understanding the practical difference between the two, it's important to understand the ideological differences between safety audits and safety inspections as well.

Why You Need to Monitor the Effectiveness of Control Measures

Control measures are the heart of your aviation safety management system’s (SMS) risk mitigation efforts. You may call your "control measures" either:

• Risk controls; or
• Simply "controls."

What Are Control Measures?

When you identify a hazard within your organization, the first step is to analyze the risk. If the risk is high, then you need a control measure to reduce risk to acceptable levels.

Any change made to the existing system to reduce risk is a control measure.

Why Definition of a Hazard Matters

Accuracy is extremely important.

Much of the bureaucracy of safety management systems depend on correct and specific understanding of safety concepts. Misunderstanding definitions in SMS is synonymous with misunderstanding what a safety element is and can compromise how that safety element is:

The SMS Auditors Are Coming!

Aviation SMS audits are necessary to ensure aviation service providers comply with established guidelines. These established guidelines may come from:

• Clients;
• FAA;
• Transport Canada;

Not So Obvious

The line between reactive and proactive safety workplaces is unfortunately not as concrete as anyone would like. If it were so obvious, many organizations would be far less reactive. The fact is that most cultures are less proactive than they would like to be.

Granted, there are some obvious indicators that an organization is only responding to accidents rather than actively trying to prevent them.

Things to Prepare for Aviation SMS Audits

There are many aviation audit checklists available online.

While these checklists offer many specific tasks you need to perform, few checklists offer a broad overview of things that airports, airlines, and other aviation service providers should do to augment audit performance.

The purpose of aviation safety management systems (SMS) is to continuously improve safety performance while also improving the business' operational processes.

What Is a Gap Analysis Used For

Both new and experienced aviation safety professionals sometimes have to ask themselves, what is a gap analysis, and why am I using it?

The first thing anyone needs to understand about a gap analysis is that it is a process used by both new aviation safety management systems (SMS) and maturing SMS. This process is used by aviation service providers to determine:

What Is Risk Assessment in SMS

Risk Assessments in aviation safety management systems (SMS) are how you qualify, quantify, and rank risk exposure for:

• Reported safety issues;
• Audit findings and concerns; and
• Risk scenarios (consequences) associated with identified hazards.

Risk assessments are absolutely central to decision-making in SMS, as all actions performed on the safety issue depend on the initial and subsequent risk assessments.