Enhancing Aviation Safety: Expert Insights, Tips, and Updates from SMS-Pro

What Does It Mean to Practice Due Diligence

Two general aspects of safety management systems encompass due diligence of the entire SMS: SMS design and actual safety operations.

Practicing due diligence means ensuring that the design closely matches reality.

To use aviation safety lingo:

• Safety Risk Management process should encompass the design of your SMS;
• Safety Assurance process reflects actual safety operations; and

What Are Problems With Traditional Record Keeping

Tracking employees' documents and records is one of the most important documentation tasks aviation service providers have. This is especially true in the case of pilots, where poor record-keeping can result in regulatory fines.

Most aviation service providers manage their record keeping manually, such as in:

What Is Optimized Pilot Records Management

Aviation service providers are well aware of the importance of tracking pilots’ records and documents.

At any given time, an aviation service provider may have dozens of records that require action. Especially when these records are being documented in something like an Excel spreadsheet.

What Does Documenting Aviation SMS Mean

Aviation safety management systems (SMS) documentation is probably the most critical component of aviation SMS design.

Documentation must be clear, accurate, current, and easy to access. Documentation reflects SMS compliance and SMS performance.

Why Quality Management Is So Important for Safety

Quality management systems (QMS) are the big brother of safety management systems (SMS). They are often depicted as having conflicting interests.

Unfortunately, this is true in many organizations because the bottom line (money) is pushed more than safety.

QMS and SMS don’t have to be in conflict. In fact, if given the time and resources, they can integrate and significantly strengthen your organization’s:

What Is the Life Cycle of Hazard and Risk Occurrence?

The life cycle of hazard and risk occurrence is the entirety of an adverse event that happens in your company.

This life cycle has distinct stages that you can identify in any given event.

What Is Employee Safety Performance?

Roughly four out of every five aviation safety programs struggle with employee involvement. In many ways, the struggle is linked to the economics of SMS.

“Economics of SMS” is simply another way of saying that incentives play a crucial role in employee safety performance.

What Is Safety Culture in Aviation SMS

“Safety culture” is an ambiguous phrase that gets thrown around a lot.

Sometimes we use it when we talk about poor safety awareness when employees behave ignorantly on the ramp or around dangerous situations.

What It Means to Move to a New SMS Database Program

Changing to a new SMS program is a challenge that organizations will inevitably face at least once, and probably more. What does this involve? Chang to new SMS program usually involves the following:

What Is an Aviation Safety Management System

A safety management system is, at its core, a business approach to safety. This means that, with SMS programs, you manage safety with similar methods for other parts of operations like quality management. It is a systematic and proactive approach to managing risk that includes:

• Goal setting;
• Planning; and
• Performance monitoring.