Steve Bentley CEO of Sofema Group explains how we have grown into the largest provider of Regulatory Training worldwide with over 550 Classroom & Webinar Courses and over 200 online Regulatory Compliant & Vocational Training. Steve is pleased to provide answers to your questions:

Q - Why Do More Companies Not Offer So Many Online Courses?

A -The Simple Answer is Return on Investment, It takes around 1 Day to develop 1 hour of material so to provide a full 1 day Course typically takes around 7 - 8 Business Days (Which of course has to be funded either directly or indirectly) A further 5 Days is required to configure the course for inclusion on the online platform.

Sofema Online (SOL) www.sofemaonline.com looks at the core principles which enable us to deliver operational excellence within our organizations.

Introduction – What do we mean by Operational Excellence.?

Operational Excellence can be described as  “A philosophy of the workplace where problem-solving, teamwork, and leadership results in the ongoing improvement in an organization.

Sofema Online (SOL) www.sofemaonline.com looks at the best practices which lead to operational excellence.

Introduction – What do we mean by Operational Excellence.?

Developing Technologies are able to quickly disrupt the status quo of what could be considered as traditional industries and the conventional marketplace.

There are no longer significant barriers for competitors to enter the marketplace and changes can often occur in a matter of months

Sofema Online (SOL) www.sofemaonline.com considers the factors which make Aviation Leadership Development Skills Training Course Stand Out!

Please see the following link to the course details - https://sofemaonline.com/lms/courses/148-aviation-leadership-and-management-skills-development-leadership-skills/preview

Introduction to Positive Attributes of Leaders

Leaders are aware of the potential impact of their decision, good or bad, and have the capacity to make what can be hard decisions. Moreover, leaders know what they want to achieve and have the strength of character to pursue their objectives even in the face of opposition and often in spite of failures.

Where are we in our SMS journey in 2018? It is almost 1 decade since ICAO introduced the requirement for Proactive SMS, the good news is that it is evident that SMS is having a positive effect on the overall safety level across the industry.

In accordance with EASA Regulatory Obligations the accountable executive is accountable for establishing the SMS and allocating sufficient resources to support and maintain an effective SMS.

The current situation shows on examination that across lower levels within the industry (and this is true of almost all organisations) there as still a significant level of unreported exposures. Partly this is due to insufficient engagement with the SMS by many of the junior employees.

Pre-Requisites for Delivering SMS

SMS should build on existing organisation business processes and integrate with all the various elements of the management system. SMS Key Processes include Hazard Identification, Occurrence Reporting, Risk Management and Performance Measurement.

When a maintenance program is developed, it includes tasks that satisfy the criteria for both applicability and effectiveness.

The applicability of a task is determined by the characteristics of the component or equipment to be maintained.

The effectiveness is stated in terms of the consequences that the task is designed to prevent. The basics types of tasks that are performed by maintenance personnel are each applicable under a unique set of conditions.

Tasks may be directed at preventing functional failures or preventing a failure event consisting of the sequential occurrence of two or more independent failures which may have consequences that would not be produced by any of the failures occurring separately.

Maintenance Program task types include:

(1) Inspections of an item to find and correct any potential failures;

(2) Rework/remanufacture/overhaul of an item at or before some specified time or age limit;

Do we agree on what we mean we talk about the management of change in connection with our Safety Management System (SMS)?

Essential we are talking about changes within the business which may in some way increase our exposure to risk!

Unfortunately within the business many changes take place which are not considered for the impact that they may create related to increased risk, any lack of communication or in fact even perceived lack of communication (yes perception can lead to negative outcomes) may have negative connotations or worse!

Change Management is an area which deserves more attention than often it receives, the more visibility we provide and the more attention we give to the change then the more likely we will be to address the underlying issues.

What do we mean by internal reporting system?

Well firstly to understand the difference between Reactive Driven reporting and Proactive Driven Reporting. With the former clearly something has happened and we need to communicate with the authorities to advise them regarding what has happened.
With the latter we have a situation whereby we are trying to proactively identify hazards and exposures where the risk may be considered a salient feature.

By identifying and measuring the risk in a meaningful way we can proceed to develop a greater understanding and as a consequence create appropriate mitigations which can lessen the exposure to the underling risk.

Creating the process

Step 1 then is to have an internal reporting system which meets the company’s needs – the focus should ideally be on the gathering of information (our SMS is heavily reliant on Data) rather than the complexity of the submitted documentation – often simple is better.
We are trying to provide a simple mechanism which we will then encourage people to use in a meaningful way. A simpler system removes one of the barriers to avoid reporting (complaints that it is too bureaucratic).