Managing Aviation Root Cause Processes Including Analysis

Sofema Aviation Services (www.sassofia.com) considers key aspects related to Safety Management System (SMS) Root Cause processes.

Introduction

To fully engage with the RCA process and achieve effective risk analysis and assessment, requires that we first identify a process by which we can identify and report on hazards. 

Assessing the effectiveness of the RCA process

Consider who will perform Root Cause and what organizational templates are available to support the process, how do we maintain consistency and at the same time remove subjectivity from the process.
What training do we deliver within the organization to ensure that process and business area managers have the necessary understanding and competency to deliver effective RCA?

Consider the following as beneficial when considering Root Cause Analysis:

1) Specific training in respect of the organizations Root Cause Analysis (RCA) processes
2) Organization guidance material to facilitate effective deliberation (for example Fishbone Framework)

Note: Group analysis is beneficial to remove subjectivity with group sizes or 3 to 4 typically being shown to be effective.

We need hazards to analyze!

The Aviation industry typically recognizes hazard identification as the process used to determine all possible situations, events and circumstances that may expose people to injury, illness, disease or death or may cause damage or loss of equipment and property, or damage to the environment.

So the first measure of our process is to consider how the hazard reporting system is working.

For each business Area consider the following:

1) Are hazards freely reported?
2) Are the number of Hazards reported representative of the perceived level of hazard exposure?
3) Is there an effective voluntary hazard reporting system evident and functional?
4) Is an effective feedback system evident to ensure that outcomes are fed back to the originator (closed loop)?

Measuring RCA success – Return on Investment (ROI)

Ultimately RCA is all about improving your bottom line in safety, environmental compliance, and profitability.

Consider the Return on Investment:

What is the estimate of the saving against the total cost to perform the RCA mitigation?
How many of the identified corrective actions have delivered the expected or desired result?

Note: Effective RCA Mitigation Completion is one of the strongest Key Performance Indicators to gauge the success of the Initiative.

Further Guidance

Sofema Aviation Services (SAS) and SofemaOnline (SOL) are pleased to offer a range of EASA compliant regulatory training courses in support of Aviation Safety Management System (SMS) Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment, Root Cause Analysis & Mitigation Implementation.

For details please see www.sassofia.com, www.sofemaonline.com or contact us at office@sassofia.com or online@sassofia.com