By definition, aviation safety culture is an organization’s commitment to safety. I tend to find this definition limiting.
Perhaps a better way to understand safety culture is the means of realizing safety success, in which commitment is just one part.
Of course, safety culture in the aviation industry needs to be coupled with an organized, compliant aviation safety management system (SMS) in order to increase an organization's ability for safety success.
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
A common misperception in the aviation industry regarding safety management is that it is primarily a responsibility of the safety manager to work on all safety related matters.
The reality is actually different; paradoxically the safety manager is the one who should be doing the least: s/he should be working only as a facilitator of safety processes.
The real proactive work should be done at the level of each division with each divisional head (e.g. the flight operations manager) heavily involved in risk assessment and safety-sensitive development or updating of operating practices.
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
Our global economy relies heavily on aviation SMS safety assurance activities to be carried out dutifully by aviation service providers.
The aviation industry is responsible for safely transporting goods and people all over the world.
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
In aviation SMS, you analyze risk in order to identify how a particular issue affects safety. Based on your analysis, you can assess the safety issue, thereby ranking the level of risk and understanding what, if any, actions you need to take on the issue.
When you analyze the risk of an issue, you should be looking out for specific parts of the issue, such as:
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
I have written before that one of the biggest problems with safety culture in aviation safety management systems (SMS) is the way most of us understand what safety culture is. The problem confounds itself when one considers the other related organizational performance topics, such as:
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
Leading indicators is a current hot topic in safety programs.
I’ve noticed that there also seems to be differing and even conflicting information about exactly what are leading indicators in aviation safety management systems (SMS).
I’ve seen lagging indicators equated with
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
People.
Superior safety performance in any aviation risk management program is always the result of putting the needs of employees first, and then supporting them with quality policies and procedures, and great aviation safety management system (SMS) tools.
Great aviation safety policy can give rise to quality lagging indicator controls (reactive controls to the safety event) through analysis of issues. But leading safety indicators – that is to say, proactive indicators – will ever only be worth as much as the employees behind the risk controls.
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
Through the course of daily work in an aviation safety management system, you will discover safety issues – this is called “discovery.” When you make discoveries, such as through hazard reporting or SMS audits, you need to formally process them through your SMS Safety Assurance Process.
Without a doubt, key performance indicators (KPIs) have been on the minds of more aviation safety professionals for the past five years than any other single aviation safety topic. These KPIs cover a wide scope of business operations, such as:
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
Policies and procedures are the central backbones of any aviation safety management system (SMS).
During aviation SMS audits, the adequacy of your policies and procedures will be looked at thoroughly. The safety of day-to-day behaviors will be greatly influenced by the quality of procedures being followed.
Tracking policies and procedures becomes critically important when these policies or procedures are risk controls that mitigate hazard-related consequences.
Topics: 3-Safety Assurance
These two on-demand videos offer:
