Driven by the International Civil Aviation Organization ICAO Safety Management Systems are being implemented as a Compliance Driven requirement, however SMS is a performance based system, whereby the objective is to deliver organisational safety at a lever as low as reasonably practical ALARP.
The last 30 years have seen changes in the aviation industry understanding of what causes incidents and accidents in aviation with far more emphasis being placed on the organisational factors as well as a deeper understanding of the “human Factors” together this understanding has seen significant focus being placed on the need to manage safety using effective organisational wide processes.
For an SMS to be successful all employees of the organization must contribute in the best way possible to support the identification of hazard and to determine the associated risk and exposure.
A Fully integrated Safety Management Systems will consider exposure across a range of organisations areas and activities at Strategic (Corporate Level), Business Area ( Management Level) and in the workplace process and procedures (Operational Level).
Once understood in the context of the organization the Risk may me mitigated in the best way possible. The understanding and promotion of a safety minded culture becomes a pivotal requirement.
Effective SMS requires a full understanding of the Cultural Issues together with the most effective process for managing competency within the organization.
SMS should be fully integrated within the management system of the organization and should enable you to isolate and protect your organisation against undesired outcomes. If implemented in the best way possible a fully embedded SMS can not only support the prevention of incidents and accidents, but can also lead to the isolation of financial inefficiencies and reduce unnecessary loss.
Following the introduction of regulations directly associated with SMS regulators are going to be challenged with the oversight of a performance based as opposed to a prescriptive based system. The challenge is to rise above the obligations and to embrace an SMS which delivers organisational optimization rather than focus on the goal of compliance with the regulators expectation.
The SMS system is scalable and has to fit within the organisations budget at the same time delivering the most effective Safety System possibly. An important element of the implementation is the measurement of the activity being performed. Without the ability to measure our safety performance it will be challenging to understand just how effective our Safety System really is.
We have to develop organisational specific tools which lets us measure how well we are actually doing and to be able to access the effectiveness of our safety improvements.
Sofema Aviation Services offers a range of SMS courses please see http://www.sassofia.com/aviation-training-courses or email office@sassofia.com for details
