Implement
Safety Policy At All Levels
Another great post from CatlinaNJB!
In some countries
drivers are expected to drive on the right side of the road, while other places
the expectation is to drive on the left side. At times a country may change
this practice and change from driving on one side of the road over to the other
side. Several years ago when one country changed from driving on the left side
to the right side it was said that for a smooth transition they would first
begin with trucks and busses to drive on the right side, and a month later cars
would change over to right hand side driving.
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| The safety policy belings in all branches. |
Human
nature is to ease into changes to slow down the reaction of emotional impact of
changes, rather than make a determination to change and move beyond emotions.
Stories says that some, when starting a new job, must ease into the job by only
working a few hours a day. And most of us do not appreciate the emotions of the
sudden change of ice-cold water, and is very hesitant to just jump in without first
ease into it first
A Safety Management
System (SMS) Safety Policy is still in a developing stage and new to most
aviation service suppliers. Safety may have been implemented in several of the
exploration and mining industries, but in aviation safety became the
hit-and-miss approach. The fact that the majority of airlines operate without
major accidents does not support that there are streamlined and effective
safety operational processes in place. What this data of few accidents tells us
is that there were few accidents. The data don’t tell any stories of how effective
operational safety processes are.
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| A safety policy keeps the tracks lined up at all levels |
The
effectiveness of safety processes begins with the Safety Policy and have no
ending, but continues on with human factors. A Safety Policy is only applicable
to an organization when implemented at all levels. There are positions in any
organization, aviation industry included, which at first sight does not appear
to be a part of safety. However, these positions will always be a part of the
second phase of implementing driving on left-hand-side to right-hand-side. Or,
in other words, when the Safety Policy is not implemented at all levels in the
organization, these positions become a hazard to aviation safety.
The top management is
an SMS organization is the Accountable Executive (AE). Should an aviation organization
not make the Safety Policy applicable to the AE, the organization does not have
a Safety Management System in place, no matter what processes are implemented. At
the opposite end, unless lower level personnel are included in the Safety
Policy there is no SMS in place. A safety polity that is selectively
implemented is not a valid policy and if not applicable to all, it’s applicable
to none.
Safety in aviation
must be viewed from a customer’s point of view and what safety risk the
customer is willing to accept. All travelling customers only accept Zero
Tolerance to Compromise Aviation Safety, which begins with the Safety Policy
and have no ending, but continues on with human factors.
CatalinaNJB
