Documentation And SMS
NOTE: This post is from one of our frequent contributors to this blog, "Birdseye59604."
Documentation is the core support of
a Safety Management System (SMS). This is the chosen method to recall plans,
policies, objectives, goals and parameters, and a tool to recall future plans.
The
policies, objectives and goals of an SMS plan are completed products for
operational applications, while the blueprints of an SMS plan are located
within the planning, the brainstorming and description of the plan.
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| The Blueprint is what makes the outcome. |
Blueprints
may be changed. The intent of an SMS plan is to maintain it and not to change
it. If looking at an SMS plan as a home that was just built, the plan is
maintained by changing paint colors, or rearranging furniture. A system failure of the plan would be if a home
required 6 bedrooms, but only 3 were built. This is a structural issue where
regular maintenance does not change the layout, and a complete structural
change, or system change is required. The intent of an SMS plan is therefore to
be maintained and not to be restructured until a Management Review of
Operational Masterplan identifies necessary system changes.
When making
the blueprints for an SMS plan applicable regulatory and operational
requirements are indentified. A completed SMS plan has established processes
for continuing identification of regulatory and operational requirements.
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| If the SMS plan is on track then it is on track, if not then someone knows |
A completed
SMS plan is distributed to personnel as identified in organizational charts. The
plan may be fully or partially distributed, based on personnel SMS
involvements.
A property
serviced and "well greased" SMS
plan is functioning effectively. There might be times when it appears that an
SMS plan is an additional operational cost. As any operational plans, including
accounting, business planning and employee staffing there are costs involved. What
an SMS plan does, is to bring to light a costs-anomaly incurred but not identified.
The cost of an SMS plan is time spent on going back to the blueprints to change
processes when the processes are ineffective. Time spent on the SMS plan blueprints is
therefore tracked as a time-cost value to identify effect on profit margin. An
SMS plan itself is just documentation to recall how the organization is
functioning.
BirdsEye59604
A friend of mine once visited the Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio. The Wexner Center is a citadel of postmodern architecture. It has stairways leading nowhere, columns that come down but never touch the floor, beams and galleries going everywhere, and a crazy-looking exposed girder system over most of the outside. Like most of postmodernism, it defies every canon of common sense and every law of rationality. The archetect was showing the meaningless of life.
ReplyDeleteMy friend looked at the building and cocked his head. With a grin he asked, "I wonder if they used the same techniques when they laid the foundation?" This story clearly depicts the idea of a strong foundation for any Management System. This post is so right in that changes should only "tweak" the system to optimal Continuous Improvement.
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