Firstly to understand that Aviation Quality Auditing is focused on Compliance and the SMS is focused on Risk. Maintenance Human Factors concerns all the various issues which may have an impact on how people perform required tasks.
Now to consider that each area is connected, means they are not independent from each other and that effective quality assurance auditing can identify significant exposures if the audit is able to look in the right place in the right way.
When we perform Safety Assessments we can often discover shortfalls which are measurable using the Quality Audit process, remember that essentially Quality Audits are prescriptive whereas Safety Audits are subjective. Means that Quality Audits are predominately driven by check-lists, whereas the Safety Audit focuses more on Subjective Judgement. With a Safety audit we try to assess the
potential exposure across a range of activities within the business.
Quality audits focus on the need to ensure compliance with company procedures and regulatory requirements; however at a deeper level we see many connections between HF, SMS & Quality Assurance.
For example competence is now understood as a critical issue in mitigating the potential exposure driven by Human Interaction. As such competence is also becoming a significant audit issue which is of course connected with Human Factors.
Essentially the more capable a person is the less likely he or she is to make a mistake which is driven by a lack of understanding.
Therefore to audit for the effective delivery of a competence assessment and management process can add strength to the organization.
Training is another significant issue; Quality Assurance can assess the training against the standard and the measurement of the effectiveness of the standard.
Where are the procedures? Who manages the procedures? Are they effective? How to measure ( low incidence of incident or accident).
The availability of the correct resource is an important element when considering an effective QA audit, it is not always obvious when there is a manpower shortfall, however constrictions in the availability of the manpower can cause pressure points which in turn lead to stress and potentially a human factor exposure.
Organisational procedures must be understood by all those who are required to use them! How is this managed as again any shortfall can lead to increased exposure?
Sofema Aviation Services offers Quality Audit Training for Trainers to enable the organization to self manage and appoint internal auditors. The next course will be delivered in the facilities of Jet Aviation at the Dubai Airport Free Zone Jan 29th & Jan 30th 2014.
For details please see www.sassofia.com or email office@sassofia.com
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aviation safety, Maintenance Human Factors, Quality Audit, Quality Audit Training for Trainers, Safety Assessments, Safety Audits, Sofema Aviation Services
