Aviation SMS Exposure Description and Understanding – Comments by Sofema Aviation Services (SAS) www.sassofia.com
Introduction – Considering Exposure to Aviation Risk Management Processes
Whilst the Leadership Team is responsible for the successful delivery of a “Top Down” Aviation Safety Management System, how well does this Leadership Team actually understand the level of Risk which is faced by the organization across all business areas?
Whilst it is the responsibility of the Safety Manager to actually manage the Safety Management System the role of addressing the particular risk found in a Business Area sits with the relevant Business Area owner.
How to Identify Risk?
Firstly, to understand that the decree of Risk encountered relates to the further understanding of a particular Hazard (anything which has the potential to cause harm).
Note – Key Word “Potential” – does not mean it will – means it can!
In most common scenarios which address the understanding of Risk, we talk about:
- Probability (likelihood); and
- Severity.
A combination of the above two elements provides us with our “Risk Measure” ( highly likely with severe consequences is obviously quite concerning).
Some indicators related to likelihood (subjective)
- How likely is it that we believe the hazard will actually occur? – worst case
- Have we seen this hazard before (say in the last 2 years)?
- How many Health & Safety Events have we seen in the last 2 Years – how likely we will see them in the near/foreseeable future?
Some indicators related to Severity (subjective)
- What is the potential cost to our reputation?
- What is the actual Dollar / Euro Amount of the Damage or Recovery?
Exposure / Resilience
By paying attention to the concept of exposure during the risk management processes we can start to move our SMS from a reactive outlook (“Something happened” – Why? to “Something may happen” – What should we do to lower the chances of something happening!)
By paying attention to exposure/resilience we are able to look a little deeper into the question “How likely is XYZ to Happen” – by reducing our exposure through a range of mitigations we can also minimize the potential risk of a given hazard.
Exposure can also be factored into the analysis process when we perform risk assessments, by ensuring that business area owners are trained to evaluate and consider exposure allows a stronger and often more effective response to the need to address the issue.
Next Steps
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Aviation Risk, Aviation Safety Management System, Aviation SMS, Risk Management, Safety, Safety Management System, SAS blogs, SMS
