The SMS Experience
Post by CatalinaNJB
Many operators may have experienced SMS as a
burden to the operations and an administrative task only, while other may have experienced
tangible positive results as a function of implementing a Safety Management
System. Everyone wants to operate safe, but SMS doesn’t always seem to get the
job done. Days of working with SMS only add to the issue of operational tasks
and incidents and accidents still happens. Endless days and nights of hard SMS
work doesn’t get the job done or pays off in safety. All the SMS work seems to
be never-ending circles of tasks and the wheels are spinning in one place.
Different methods are applied but all it does is to create irrelevant safety
tasks. More and more safety tasks are added, more rules and policies are
implemented but all it does is generating unnecessary tasks. At the end of the
day SMS haven’t made a bit difference in safety and it has not moved away from
what safety was several years ago. Year after year the focus was on safety
management safety is status quo, or even with a negative support trend.
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| Thinking outside the box generates a conflict with what is expected to be in the box. |
Air Operators or Airport Operators who
implemented SMS have experienced frustration over SMS time and time over again.
However, it is not possible to argue with safety and oppose regulations or
policies with intent to make flying safer. Questioning safety doesn’t fit
inside the box of safety expectations, safety policies or a mandatory safety
regulation.
Everybody says that safety is to think outside the box, but when it
comes down to the nitty-gritty, outside the box processes are not accepted and
findings are issued. Safety has become a tool to stay put inside the box
without differentiate between regulatory requirements and operational safety
processes. SMS has in its own way become its own enemy with miserable
experiences for several operators and without a purpose. SMS is both being
credited for 2017 to be one of the safest years in aviation history, while it
is also being criticized for lack of effectiveness or lack of operational
control when aviation accidents happen. SMS has ended up in a no-win situation
and pushed out into no-man’s land.
If to determine the effectiveness of SMS is to
count the “good” data, or to count the times when things goes right rather than
the “bad” data SMS has an incredible high success rate since there are very few
landing that ends up in a disaster. This view also brings up the old saying
that “Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.” Analysis of
aviation safety is, and has been since the beginning, to count undesired data.
It is crucial to aviation safety to comprehend undesired data for continuous
improvement analysis. Data can be grouped into two groups:
1) Common cause variations (normal operations);
and
2) Special cause variations (abnormal
operations)
By the way, there are no “good” or “bad” data.
Data is emotionless. It is all just data and nothing else.
When counting these variations there is an
opportunity for the SMS to be retrieved from this no-man’s land and analyze
data for continuous safety improvement. SMS itself cannot fail. It’s fail-free
since all it does is to make a recording of operational policies, processes,
procedures and practices. SMS is a selfie of the operations.
When SMS is applied to continuous safety
improvements, is when SMS has become more than an administrative tool of
shuffling reports to different managers and departments. Continuous safety
improvements might not be immediate noticeable, but over time the continuous
improvement will show in a reduction in common cause variations. The reduction
of common cause variations is where the return on investment is and a tool to
improve effectiveness at a current operational efficiency level. When applying
SMS as a practical tool for improvements, and a tool for ROI on safety, that is
when an SMS program becomes alive and makes sense.
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| Birds are the effect of land use operations |
Let’s for a minute look at a scenario: On approach to an airport there is a
birdstrike causing damage to an airplane. An SMS report is filed, and the
damages are repaired. The hazard associated with the SMS report is entered into
a hazard registry, a response is submitted to the contributor.
The report
submitted to an appropriate manager, a risk assessment is conducted, the risk
level is accepted or rejected, substitute and residual risks are assessed, a
safety risk level is assigned in the hazard registry, a profile is generated of
the associated hazard, the hazard is entered into objectives and goals records,
criteria for investigation is determined, the investigation is conducted and
concluded with an investigation summary, a root cause analysis is performed and
includes contributing factors, a corrective action plan is assigned, a response
to the contributor of the proposed CAP is submitted, including in the CAP are
timelines, the CAP is assigned to a responsible person, a temporary SMS Ops
Bulletin is issued for later to be implemented in the documentation, the CAP is
implemented, monitored and assessed for performance goal and concludes with a
response to the contributor that the CAP is closed. The air operator determined
the root cause to be migratory bird season and the CAP to take change flight
path when birds are in the area on approach or departure
During the next 12 months the CAP is monitored,
trending is applied, and a review is conducted of objectives and goals
achievements and the hazard is re-issued a hazard priority to repeat the
process as required. These are comprehensive tasks to address just for one type
of hazard. At the end of the day there might not be any changes in safety
improvement since year after year the birds are migrating across the same route
and crossing the approach to the main runway.
 |
|
In safety it's not the
thought that counts.
|
When applying SMS processes as continuous
improvement the air operator would include the airport in the CAP and review
one or more CAPs generate by the airport operator, who is the expert of airport
operations.
These CAPs could ensure that there are no bird-feeding grounds or
waters under final approach, the airport could conduct a bug-study for bird
attractions and they could conducts study of cereal crops in the area that
attracts birds and location of community landfills. When knowing these things,
the airport has a opportunity to make changes to reduce bird activity in the
area. By coordinating with the airport, the highest priority-level of hazards is
mitigated or eliminated. If the bird-feeding grounds under final approach were
to be removed, this would eventually lead to fewer birds in that area. The
difference between the air operator only analysis, and the second, when the
airport is involved, is that the airport is approaching it from a root cause
prospective of a landuse issue, while the air operator is applying the root
cause to airport operation for short term bird avoidance during operations.
Both root causes are valid and analyzing
contributing factors with one goal in mind of continuous safety improvements. The
continuous safety improvement factor is that each one of the root causes
integrates with the other by analyzing a common variation of birds, but does
this in two distinct and different ways.
CatalinaNJB
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