ICARUS Aviation Safety
®
The SMS Journey
Safety performance is fundamentally dependent on the performance of your aviation safety management system. Understanding what makes up this system, what drives and influences performance and how to measure that performance is all part of the safety management process.
In the past aviation safety management has been focused on occurrence reporting - a lagging indicator. Today we need a management system approach that identifies hazards and mitigates risks to proactively manage safety performance and make more informed decisions – leading indicators. This management system approach needs to be proactive and systematic beyond the traditional compliance and audit-driven approach. It is therefore essential that your safety management system is adequately led, managed and assured to meet the performance levels you determine necessary for your organisation.
Effective safety management is more than a manual; it requires leadership and an organisational culture where safety can thrive.
The implementation of SMS also provides an opportunity for an organisation to look at it's responsibilities in the area of Occupational Health & Safety. If we compare the requirements associated with aviation and workplace safety management, we see that there are many similarities; for instance: Safety Policy, Identifying Hazards, Managing Risk, Occurrence Investigation, Emergency Response, etc. Taking the Integrated Safety Management System approach aligns and simplifies processes and a offers a realisation that SMS isn't "new" after all.
Please see SMS Presentation delivered to the Royal Aeronautical Society, under the Links tab.
"If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, then
chronic unease is the price of safety."
Professor James Reason