This Subject will be presented, considered and discussed during the forthcoming Aviation Quality & Safety Management Symposium 2019 May 14 & May 15 at the Holiday Inn Sofia. 

One of the measures of a successful Safety Management System (SMS) within an organisation, is a common understanding throughout the company of what needs to be achieved to deliver the objectives and how it should be done.

Getting Behind the Objective

Provide a unified approach, one in which we all understand our individual roles, bring a common organisational system

A Discussion Paper by Steve Bentley Group CEO of Sofema Aviation Services www.sassofia.com

Clearing up the Basic Stuff

SMS is not QMS by another name they are both separate and both significantly important QMS together with Quality Assurance (QA) strives to deliver a fully compliant product or process, whereas SMS considers the risk associated with any & all business risks. SMS is both subjective & forward looking. A fully functioning Safety Management System contributes to the viability of the organisation by addressing safety risk.

SMS should focus on real-time performance monitoring and reporting together with effective data analysis – a major challenge being to consider how to capture the required data across the business in a valid way.

Sofema Aviation Services www.sassofia.com considers the steps necessary to deliver an effective Organisational Aviation Safety Management System (SMS)

For Any Organizational Project to be successful it must have ownership, an agreed timeline and sufficient resources to accomplish.

The Importance of Manpower Commitment

Note 1 – How does the organisation ensure there is sufficient manpower – what is the mechanism to assess – who is responsible and how does the Accountable Manager know he has this correct.

Note 2 – How does the AM ensure sufficient financial commitment to the delivery of a successful SMS – how is this represented and measured?

Within the Aviation Safety Management System it is necessary to develop effective methods of both Top Down & Bottom up Communication.

How to measure the current status of the communication effectiveness?

Consider a Communication Audit!

A communication audit is a thorough evaluation of the organization’s ability to deliver information to every level with the organisation.

Essential the communication audit looks at both the internal mechanisms as well as the external communications for example:

a) With Contract Organizations – Data Exchange Methods!
b) With Sub Contract Service Providers (Direct Oversight)
c) Delivering information to the Front Line
d) Dealing with the challenge of the Iceberg or Ignorance

Sofema Aviation Services www.sassofia.com considers the major challenges

Introduction

Without doubt an Effective Aviation Safety Management System (SMS) provides industry with a key driver to manage the various elements, which together can support the lowering of the exposure and lead to a reduction of incidents and accidents.

The crux of implementing an effective safety management system (SMS) is not just in defining it, but effectively implementing it throughout the business with everyone acting as a stakeholder and engaging with the organisations processes.

The Focus of this blog is to consider the inter-relationship between Maintenance Error Management Systems (MEMS) – (typically using the Boeing Maintenance Error Decision Aid as a primary tool) and Safety Management through Human Factor Learning within the context of a viable Safety Management System.

What is the Purpose of MEMS?

The rationale behind a MEMS System is to identify any situations which may “promote” the potential for error. In addition to facilitate (using the organisational framework) the risk based decision making process which will lead to stronger defences.

Driving Safety Management System (SMS) Value from your Aviation Maintenance Error Management System (MEMS).
Throughout our Industry we know that Maintenance Errors cost millions of Euros every year through the need for rework, delays and lost revenue. (To consider also the potential to introduce safety related exposures.)

What is MEDA?

Boeing developed the MEDA process to assist maintenance organisations identify why events occur and how to prevent them in the future.

MEDA provides a process for conducting thorough and consistent investigations, determining the factors that lead to an event and making improvements to reduce the likelihood of future incidents.

It is not possible to separate the Safety Management System from the need to manage Ramp HF in the most effective way. In fact the more integration the better in terms of understanding and managing the exposure.

All the elements which are considered as part of our Aviation Ramp Safety & Human Factors Exposure may typically be accommodated and addressed as part of the delivery of the SMS system.

If we are able to study and take appropriate action in respect of the human factors issues, we will be able to better prepare to deal with human factors issues and behaviours in our daily routine.

Driven by ICAO obligations European Countries (as well as the rest of the world) are required to demonstrate compliance with the requirements of ICAO Annex 19.

Airports are specifically mentioned within the requirements related to the need for a State Safety Program as well as the need to demonstrate compliance with the SMS obligations.

Steven Bentley MD of Sofema Aviation Services believes it is time to recognise QAS as a component of our organisations' SMS.

Where Should an EASA Compliant Quality Assurance System “Sit” in relation to the Organisations SMS?

Introduction

Historically (and growing up in the workplace through the 1970’s I can attest to the fact) there was no formal Quality Assurance within European Aviation Operations.

Of course we had Quality Control and the Role of Flight Operations Director and within Maintenance the Role of “Chief Inspector”.

As the Joint Airworthiness Authority’s influence grew the concept of an independent assessment of conformity became the acceptable way of demonstrating compliance.

Comments by Steve Bentley MD Sofema Aviation Services www.sassofia.com

Introduction

As a precursor to the introduction of Regulation 376/2014 EASA identified shortcomings related to Aviation Occurrence Reporting and proposed in 2010 a new regulation which in compliance with ICAO objectives moved the focus from a ‘reactive’ system to a pro-active, risk and evidence based system.  It also acknowledges that safety occurrence data is vital to allow for the timely identification and management of potential safety hazards and acts upon this before these hazards turn into an actual accident. 

EASA introduced EU Regulation 376/2014, (repealing EU directive 2003/42/EC), which came into force on 15th Nov 2015. The regulation provides additional safeguards to address the lack of protection of the reporters, the lack of harmonisation in the occurrence data collection and integration (leading to low quality reports and incomplete information), as well as insufficient requirements regarding safety analysis and the resulting recommendations.

Introduction

Effective safety reporting of hazards by operational personnel is an important cornerstone of the management of safety. Therefore, an operational environment in which operational personnel have been trained and are constantly encouraged to report hazards is the prerequisite for effective safety reporting.

The ICAO requirements require that aviation service providers develop and maintain, within the scope of their SMS, a formal process for collecting, recording, acting on and generating feedback about hazards in operations. The process shall be based on a combination of reactive, proactive and predictive methods of safety data collection. 

Best Practice Considerations

Consider the following as best practice objectives regarding the delivery of an optimize and effective Safety Management System.

Risk Assessment

Driven by ICAO Annex 19 Identifying, Assessing, and Mitigating Risk is at the epicentre of an effective Aviation Safety Management System (SMS).

The challenge is to ensure that Safety Risk Assessment is performed in a genuine way with tangible benefits as a measurable outcome. The consequence of a risk can usually be expressed in several ways and these will affect the assessment of severity and likelihood, requiring care competence and diligence on the part of the analysts. 

Delivering Effective Risk Assessment Requires?

When considering Risk the challenge will always be related to the subjectivity of the perceived exposure. Therefore a broad range of contributors to the Risk Assessment Process is highly beneficial including.

One of the biggest barriers to an effective Safety Management System (SMS) depends on the willingness of the employees to engage with the organisational system and for the managers to support such a program in a positive and tolerant way.

Without the willingness to engage with the Safety Management System (SMS) the level of data capture will lead to the creation of barriers.

Full engagement by the Management Team is an essential first step on the journey and without doubt. If we are going to maintain a healthy safety management systems (SMS) we require an open process of hazard reporting which allows us to understand the exposure and to reduce the operational risk.

How we are impact the various organisational barriers is in turn impacted by cultural and other behaviours which are often routed in mistrust.

Safety is defined as “The condition to which risks are managed to acceptable levels.”

Whenever Humans and Machines are involved there will always be potential for accident and incident. Safety management is based on the premise that hazards, risks and threats will always exist.

With a Safety Management System (SMS) we focus on the real possibility of reducing the organisations exposure across a range of business areas – we do this by delivering a systematic approach to risk management.

It is possible to promote transparent processes which establish clear lines of accountability and aid decision-making and to use this as a tool to drive positive change.

What do we mean by Safety Culture within an Organisation?

Safety Culture is the way safety is perceived, valued and prioritized within an organisation.

Safety Culture reflects the true commitment to safety at all levels in the organisation.

James Reason described it as "how an organisation behaves when no one is watching".

Safety Culture is a combination of a range of drivers including organisational norms, national cultural beliefs and professional attitudes. It reflects people attitude and believe towards the importance of safety.

How important is Safety Culture?

A Positive Safety Culture Matters because it provides a focus on how the organisation approaches incident recording, incident analysis, staff training and the integration of maintenance safety and operational safety priorities.

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.

Sofema Aviation Services www.sassofia.com looks at typical performance indicators within an Integrated Operation

Flight Operation

Ground Operations

Maintenance

The following list serves as an introduction to a range of indicators which may be employed within your organisation to support the development of Key Indicators and to facilitate the measurement of Safety Performance across the business.

Using Data derived from the Compliance Quality Audit Program to support the Performance Metrics of the Safety Management System

1/ Internal audits/compliance monitoring: all non-compliances

a) Total number of findings per audit planning cycle & trend

b) % of findings which have a safety significance

Within our Aviation system both Quality and Safety Management systems have shared common values. To be effective they both have to be planned and managed and provided with appropriate resources. In addition both aim to involve every relevant functional element within the organization and indeed, both processes strive for continuous improvement. 

Root Cause is Root Cause you may correctly say! So how can there be a difference between Quality Management Systems (QMS) Root Cause and Safety Management Systems (SMS) Root Cause.

Lets first consider the Different roles of Quality & Safety.

Quality is looking at Compliance (It has happened!).

Quality systems tend not to consider the role of risk whereas of course this is a fundamental tenant of the SMS system.

The Quality Management System (QMS) remains however the primary means of ensuring that the organization is meeting requirements (Ensuring Regulatory Compliance) and continuously improving its processes.

GCAA says now –EASA Says Later! ICAO says 8 years ago (2009)

Sofema Aviation Services (www.sassofia.com) considers the current status of SMS within an EASA compliant Part 145 organisation.

What is SMS?

Sure we all know what is a Safety Management System (SMS)

But consider the two options :-

a) Safety Management System focused on ensuring “Mandatory Compliance” with all Safety Objectives

b) Management System focused on developing in an effective way optimized for efficiency and delivering all Mandatory Safety Objectives

Do safety management programs improve a company's bottom line?

The answer is a resounding "YES", although benefits may be somewhat hard to quantify without an effective process to manage DATA and to implement Key Performance Indicators (KPI) & Service Level Agreements (SLA).

In addition to potential outright savings on benefit claims, civil liability damages or litigation expenses, having a solid safety and health management program with senior management commitment will improve productivity and employee morale.