Paul R. Snyder - Practical Safety Management Systems: A Practical Guide to Transform Your Safety Program Into a Functioning Safety Management System

Chapter 1

Overview and History of Safety Management Systems

Objectives

• Define the definition of Safety Management System (SMS).
• Recall the history which led to the international requirement for an SMS Program.
• Describe the United States statuary requirement to establish an SMS Program.
• Explain the history of the SMS Pilot Programs.
• Summarize the important parts of 14 CFR Part 5.
• List and define the three levels of the SMS Voluntary Program (SMSVP).
• Recall the four components of SMS.

Key Terms

• 14 CFR Part 5
• FAA Certificate Management Team (CMT)
• ICAO Annex
• ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs)
• International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)
• Safety Assurance (SA)
• Safety Management System (SMS)
• Safety Policy
• Safety Promotion
• Safety Risk Management (SRM)
• SMS Pilot Project
• SMS Voluntary Program (SMSVP)
• SMSVP Active Applicant
• SMSVP Active Conformance
• SMSVP Active Participant

What is SMS?

A safety management system (SMS) is the formal, top-down, business-like approach to managing safety risk, which includes a systemic approach to managing safety, including the necessary organizational structures, accountabilities, policies, and procedures.

Safety management systems are becoming a standard throughout the aviation industry worldwide. SMS is recognized by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) , the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the Interagency Planning Office (IPO), and many product and service providers as the next step in the evolution aviation safety. SMS is also becoming a standard for the management of safety beyond aviation. Similar systems are used in the management of other critical areas such as quality, occupational safety and health, security, and environment.

Safety management systems for product/service providers (certificate holders) and regulators integrates modern safety risk management and safety assurance concepts into repeatable, proactive systems. SMS emphasizes safety management as a fundamental business process to be considered in the same manner as other aspects of business management.

By recognizing the organizations role in accident prevention, an SMS provides:

• A structured means of safety risk management decision-making .
• A means of demonstrating safety management capability before system failures occur.
• Increased confidence in risk controls though structured safety assurance processes.
• An effective interface for knowledge sharing between regulator and certificate holder.
• A safety promotion framework to support a sound safety culture .

Technology and system improvements have made great contributions to safety. Part of being safe is about attitudes and paying attention to what your surroundings are telling you. Whether through data or through the input of employees and others, recognizing that many opportunities exist to stop an accident is the first step in moving from reactive to predictive thinking.

Safety begins from both the top down and the bottom up. Everyone from the receptionist, ramp worker, pilot, supervisors, managers, the chief executive officer, and FAA Inspector has a role to perform.

SMS is all about safety-related decision-making throughout the entire organization. Thus it is a decision-makers tool, not a traditional safety program separate and distinct from business and operational decision-making. It can be a complex topic with many aspects to consider, but its defining characteristic is that it is a decision-making system. An SMS does not have to be an extensive, expensive, or sophisticated array of techniques in order to do what it is supposed to do. Rather, an SMS is built by structuring safety management around four components:

• Safety policy ;
• Safety risk management (SRM) ;
• Safety assurance (SA) ; and
• Safety promotion .

Safety Policy

Safety policy consists of setting objectives, standards, and assigning responsibilities. It is also where management conveys its commitment to the safety performance of the organization to its employees. As SRM and SA processes are developed, the organization should come back to the safety policy to ensure that the commitments in the policy are being realized and that the standards are being upheld.

Safety Risk Management

The SRM component provides a decision-making process for identifying hazards and mitigating risk based on a thorough understanding of the organizations systems and their operating environment. SRM includes decision making regarding management acceptance of risk to operations. The SRM component is the organizations way of fulfilling its commitment to consider risk in their operations and to reduce it to as low a level as possible. In that sense, SRM is a design process, a way to incorporate risk controls into processes, products, and services, or to redesign controls where existing ones are not meeting the organizations needs.

Safety Assurance

SA provides the organization with the necessary processes to give confidence that the systems meet the organizations safety objectives and that mitigations or risk controls developed under SRM are working. In SA, the goal is to watch what is going on and review what has happened to ensure that objectives are being met. Thus, SA requires monitoring and measuring safety performance of operational processes and continuously improving the level of safety performance. Strong SA and safety data analysis processes yield information used to maintain the integrity of risk controls. SA processes are thus a means of ensuring the safety performance of the organization, keeping it on track, correcting it where necessary, and identifying needs for rethinking existing processes.

Safety Promotion

The last component, safety promotion, is designed to ensure that an organizations employees have a solid foundation regarding their safety responsibilities, the organizations safety policies and expectations, reporting procedures, and a familiarity with risk controls. Training and communication are the two key areas of safety promotion.

An SMS does not have to be large, complex, or expensive in order to add value. If there is active involvement by the operational leaders, open lines of communication up and down the organization and among peers, vigilance and assurance that employees know that safety is an essential part of their job performance, the organization will have an effective SMS that helps decision makers at all levels.

Evolution of Safety Management

Safety management systems are the product of a continuing evolution in aviation safety. Early aviation pioneers had little safety regulation, practical experience, or engineering knowledge to guide them. Over time, careful regulation of aviation activities, operational experience, and improvements in technology have contributed to significant gains in safety. Next came the second major phase of safety improvement, a focus on individual and crew performance known as human factors, which further reduced accidents.

The history of progress in aviation safety can be divided into three areas: the technical era, the human factors era, and the organizational era (Figure 1-1).

Figure 1-1 Evolution of safety.

The Technical EraFrom the Early 1900s Until the Late 1960s

Aviation emerged as a form of mass transportation where known safety deficiencies were initially related to technical factors and technological failures. The focus of safety endeavors was placed on the investigation and improvement of technology. By the 1950s, improvements had led to a gradual decline in the frequency of accidents. Safety processes were broadened to encompass regulatory compliance and oversight.