Steve Bentley – CEO of Sofema Aviation Services (SAS) www.sassofia.com, explains the role of the training material presented by SAS & SOL (Sofema Online) and considers the obligations of the receiving organisation.
Introduction
Sofema Aviation Services was founded back in 2008 – currently, we provide over 550 Classroom & Webinar Courses and over 220 Online courses through our sister site www.sofemaonline.com
Since the beginning of Jan 2020, we have had over 17500 enrollments in our regulatory training.
What are EASA Compliant Regulatory Training Courses?
They are courses that either meet the specific need of the organisation as required by an EASA approved organisation (for example Part OPS, Part CAMO, Part 145, Part 21 Subpart G, or other relevant regulations). Or they add value to the Competence Building Objectives of the Organisation.
Important Note – These Courses are all outside of the remit of an EASA 147 Organisation.
Further explanation – There is no EASA proscribed organisation approval to deliver such training courses – Human Factors to comply with EASA 145.A.30, Fuel Tank Safety, EWIS, Safety Management Systems, Quality Auditing Technics, and many more.
What is the Purpose of the Regulatory Compliant Training Courses?
To provide the clients’ employees with an understanding of the primary aspects considerations and rational of the core subject together with a practical understanding regarding how the organisation may continue to comply with their organisation obligations (both external & internal).
Customer Focused Service Delivery
SAS is focused on providing our customers with the best possible training experience. It is our goal to ensure this training material remains fully compliant however to emphasize the essential elements of the relevant regulatory rule or requirement. SAS provides redacted regulatory material intended for training purposes.
Please note it is quite possible that:
- Existing regulations consider additional or further requirements to those in the training material
- References may be at small variance between the training material and the related regulatory training material
- At all times, please use the Current Applicable Regulation as a measure against your Company Process
How Should a Client Audit Sofema and the Provided Training Material?
Currently, Sofema has approximately 1500 clients.
Regarding any compliance auditing, the first step is to establish the audit criteria and to measure the effectiveness of the product against these criteria.
Factors to be Considered when Evaluating Sofema Online
- Communication & Provided Support
- Presentation of Material
- Quality of the Material Content (Subjective & Meets the Clients Expectations)
Note – Concerning the Responsibility Regarding the Content & Standard Related to Delivery of EASA Regulatory Compliant Training
- The receiving organisation is responsible for the competence of its staff and to internally assess (by audit) the correctness of the material
o To comply with the above obligation Sofema Aviation Services provides guest enrollment for Quality & Safety Auditors
Who Will Accept SAS & SOL Certificates?
- Since our Inception, no Regulatory Authority has declined a SAS or SOL certificate. In fact, not only have we delivered a number of training courses specifically for several regulatory authorities, we have current Consultant Instructors who are also employed as Competent Authority Airworthiness Inspectors.
What is the relationship between Part 147 Organisations and any Regulatory Training Obligations?
- One of the most frequent questions we are asked concerns the relationship between EASA Regulatory Training and 147 approval. Typically, this relates to the fundamental misunderstanding regarding the role of an EASA 147 approval.
Note 1 – EASA Part 147 is NOT in any way a generic training approval it is only for providing BASIC and TYPE training to PART 66 Licensed aircraft engineers and for no other purpose.
Note 2 – Both SAS & SOL receives their regulatory training course acceptance from the receiving organisation.
- Based on a range of acceptance criteria including the continuous demonstration of effective delivery.
Further Guidance – please read Our Blog: EASA Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem? https://sassofia.com/blog/easa-part-of-the-solution-or-part-of-the-problem/
Who makes Decisions Regarding the Acceptance of Regulatory Training within an Organisation?
This is a very important point for our clients to familiarize themselves with.
- Your organisations’ Compliance Manager / Quality Assurance Manager is considered as your Organisations’ “Regulatory Expert”.
- Therefore he (or she) Is not only familiar with the various requirements is ideally placed to assess the acceptability of Sofema Training Material and for this reason, “guest access” is provided without cost to enable assessment & approval of the requested course content.
Important Note – These Regulatory Training Courses are all outside of the remit of an EASA 147 Organisation.
- Further explanation – There is no EASA proscribed organisation approval to deliver such training courses – Human Factors to comply with EASA 145.A.30, Fuel Tank Safety, EWIS, Safety Management Systems, Quality Auditing Technics, and many more.
What are the organizational obligations regarding EASA Compliant courses?
- Under the EASA system, it is the responsibility of the organisation to ensure that any training is compliant not just with EASA regulations but also with the internal competence management and oversight requirements of the Organisation.
Additional Note Regarding Sofema Online training courses
- All SOL courses are based on material provided by Sofema Aviation Services (SAS) www.sassofia.com and are designed to be fully compliant with the regulations.
- However please note it is for the receiving organisation to ensure that the material meets your needs.
To support this obligation, we provide guest access to nominated Compliance & Quality Managers to audit & assess Sofema Online Training Material.
What Approval is Required to Deliver EASA Compliant Regulatory Training?
The approval (In reality “acceptance” comes from the receiving (Part CAMO, Part 145, or Part ORO) organisation.
Please Note EASA does not issue any specific approval for Organisations to deliver regulatory training.
Is there a reason to perform an Audit of Sofema Aviation Services?
- Essentially there is no purpose for a client to audit our internal process:
o Auditing SAS & SOL Administrative Process adds no value to the client QA process as it is the product which is relevant not the SAS Internal Process.
o The Material delivered by SAS & SOL is redacted please consider EASA Access Rules for Regulation 965 has over 2000 pages – 1 one day training has approx. 250 slides.
Please provide comments & feedback to team@sassofia.com
Tags:
aviation training courses, EASA, EASA 147, Quality, Quality Audit, Regulatory Compliance, Regulatory training, SAS training, Sofema Aviation Services, Sofema Online, SOL Training, Training certificate, Training Material
