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 developing a consistent approach?

Well, we want our approach to be system driven and not overly reliant on individuals. Means we want the outcomes to be as independent as possible from the people.

For this to happen a number of elements need to be in place:

a) Procedures

The procedures which describe the methodology employed need to be in sufficient detail to enable all the users to work with them in the same way. We are always going to have a significant degree of subjectivity in our approach to SMS but this does not preclude the development of effective procedures.

What is the goal of the Aviation Safety Management System - SMS?

Well quite simply it is to:

a) Identify hazards or exposures across every area and facet of the business (ideally considering also financial exposure)
b) Assess the risk in respect of each hazard and how it is currently perceived or how it may be perceived in the future to the organisation, department or person (This is an extremely subjective activity and requires a strong degree of competence)
c) To develop appropriate mitigations to deliver an improvement which will take the risk to the lowest level possible (ALARP) using organisational tools to test or measure proposed solutions so that they are cost effective

We “should” all agree that an effective aviation Safety Management System establishes clear safety roles and responsibilities throughout the organization.

Moreover it should also be understood that we must ensure that these safety roles and responsibilities are clearly documented, (Auditable) understood, (Measurable) and practiced throughout the organization (Visible and Evidence based).

Our goal should be for individuals to both understand their own responsibilities together with an appreciation of how their individual activities may impact the safety, performance and behaviour of our colleagues within the organization as a whole.
Each business area within the organization must assume both responsibility and accountability for safety of the key elements of personal safety and organisational safety and financial safety.

Best Practice Behaviour to support our SMS

All employees should have a clear understanding of their individual safety roles and responsibilities. (This information should also appear in each job description.)

Who is best placed to answer this question? In fact the starting point should be – "What do we want our SMS to do for us?"

We often talk about the management of change and here we do not need to look any further than the implementation of an SMS as our first challenge.

As either a perfect opportunity to develop and optimize the organisation or alternatively as an organizational burden which requires specific actions to ensure compliance.

So in reality this question should be answered by the Accountable Manager and the Management Team. In fact once we answer the question then other decisions become easier and we can start to develop the structure of the SMS.

Please note it is a significant step backwards to jump into SMS implementation without really appreciating what your real goals are. So assume we have decided that we see the SMS as a real business opportunity to develop and optimize the organization.What should we do next?

Our goal is typically two fold:

1. To reduce our accident and incident rate on a continuous basis so that we see an improvement year on year
2. To identify latent exposures which can adversely impact us, and to develop mitigations before they become a problem

To ensure the best possible oversight, we need to make sure that our reporting processes within both our QMS & SMS are effective, to do this we need to ensure we have good reporting systems and effective data capture.

The Data gathered through internal and external audits together with other information will provide a sound indication for the management as to whether we are achieving our objectives.

Surveys can also provide a significant insight into the actual perception felt by the staff, and measure the effectiveness of the communications processes.