Safety Management System – SMS – What is it all about anyway – For those in the know, there is an understanding that the SMS train is arriving or should that be band wagon ! because for sure there is a lot of hype regarding SMS. There are also a number of cautions or even dangers associated with the whole process of effective SMS implementation.
The first danger is complacency, means an organization not taking SMS seriously or simply playing lip service and finishing up with An Organisation Safety Management System designed to satisfy compliance audits performed by the regulator whilst in no way raising the Safety Standard within the organization.
So before implementing an SMS within the Organisation we need total understanding acceptance and support from the Management group if the SMS is going to deliver real benefits this is the first challenge.
An Organisation Safety Management System, which is built on performance principles as opposed to compliance principles will be far more effective. Delivering behaviours which provide continuous best practice in respect of human behaviour.
EASA is getting its act together and throughout Europe we will be implementing Organisation Safety Management System practices.
It is true to say that every single person within the organization will require SMS training relevant to their role or function in the organization.
So the second challenge is defining the organizational roles in the context of an Organisation Safety Management System.
We have to encourage the general understanding of and to be able to challenge any existing preconceptions which lead to in appropriate behaviour’s within the organization. For this to be effective requires a specific culture within the organization.
This requires an understanding within the organisation to develop strategies to encourage cultural change.
Is Cultural Change a real possibility.
The simple answer is for sure, but like any baby it if it going to grow into maturity it has to be encouraged, nurtured and educated. People have to genuinely believe in.
The third challenge is to understand the significant difference between the Quality System and the Safety System.
The Quality System is essentially aimed at delivering compliance but can be developed further to monitor and optimize performance.
The Organisation Safety Management System is designed to identify, assess and mitigate risk within the organization across a whole range of business exposures.
The origins of the need of a “Proactive” rather than the pre-existing “Reactive” Safety Management System stem from the realization that many of the accidents and incidents were in fact attributable to organizational rather than individual factors.
So is aviation so unsafe ?
The answer is actually no, in fact aviation is the safest transport system on the planet !
However when we have a serious Aviation Accident it usually involves multiple fatalities and when we consider that in Aviation 80% of the accidents are caused by Human Error, then this becomes a powerful driver to understand our risks or exposures.
Detailed examination of the root cause of accidents typically identifies issues connected to organizational as well as human issues, procedures, processes, competencies, training knowledge, supervision, management and oversight.
So the role of the Organisation Safety Management System then is to support the understanding of the areas where the organization has exposure.
Putting aside the possibility of a major incident or accident there are hundreds of smaller “potential exposures” which can damage the organization in many ways for example in respect of the harm to our team members, our reputation our assets, or our finances.
This is where we can start to see a dual purpose emerge for our SMS, not just to identify and mitigate then the potential of a once in a decade catastrophe, but to act as a management tool, a source of information by which we can optimize the effectiveness of our business operation.
It is in the area of optimization where the organization can become effective and not only to mitigate exposure across the whole business but to deliver savings typically in excess of all costs associated with the implementation and upkeep of the SMS.
A major advantage of the SMS system is that it gathers and processes significant amounts of data in so doing it allows a continually developing process where by we start to understand our exposures and develop appropriate mitigations.
EASA is now taking steps to require EU operators to comply !
In fact on the world stage ICAO has required compliance with an Proactive SMS was required by Jan 2009. EASA is some 3 to 4 year late in meeting this objective, however in the big picture it is about looking forward not backwards.
The biggest challenge for an organization is not to treat the SMS system as one more mandatory compliance, but rather the opportunity to introduce a step change in the organization which will deliver significant benefits to the organization.
Organisational Challenges
The fourth challenge is to not only adopt the SMS to the Organisations Culture but to develop systems which sit comfortably within the organization to gather data which can feed into the SMS.
It has taken us a long time to get to the point we are now and the next step is to encourage organisations to embark on the SMS journey which requires the implementation of an effective business solution for your in company SMS.
The need to report
An essential element of the SMS is the need to report an ever greater number of minor incidents and issues some which may even be considered trivial but never the less may make a significant contribution to the pool of data.
Dealing with Error Management
When we Consider the number of Human Issues or Human Factors which may lead to the possibility of an error then we start to understand how this is one of the most challenging aspects to deal with to deliver an effective organization safety system.
Each organisations needs to look at how it is managing the competencies of its employees, in addition to ensure that systems are balanced, supervised and effective.
By identifying exposures it becomes possible to mitigate and to introduce error reduction strategies .
Moving on from a Just Culture
Application of the Just Culture model can drive undesirable behaviour –
The old model appears to assume individual guilt unless proven otherwise and focuses mostly on the person at the “sharp end” and does not take into account the role of the manager/supervisor in creating the environment which led to the action.
An essential element of an effective SMS focuses on the responsibility of the organization to manage its people.
A critical element of the Proactive SMS system is the mechanism for determining risk within the organization. A second possible more Critical element is the methodology used to perform investigations of errors which are identified and to ensure we do not build in preconceptions and bias into the judgment process.
Understanding and Developing the Training Program
The organization has to undertake some serious deliberations before embarking on its training program and understanding the existing culture is just one part of this process.
So the fifth challenge for any organization is to ensure that the training is relevant, real and focused on understanding the organisations real issues. The organization must have active process to encourage appropriate behaviours and to discourage in appropriate behaviours.
The training must be not only organizational specific but to be delivered within organisations own SMS program, moreover the training must demonstrate real and genuine objectives to which all employees can not only identify there role but to connect in a tangible way.
In addition the training has to deliver meaningful objectives which are supported not only before the delivery but long after. SMS training is not something to charge the students accumulator but to introduce the student to the beginning of what will become a step change in behaviour, and one which will deliver significant benefit to the organization.
