Communicate Safety Policy to All Personnel

Communicate Safety Policy to All Personnel

A brilliant insight from CatalinaNJB

For effective SMS management an airport or airline is accountable to safety by communicate the safety policy to all personnel with the result that they are made aware of their safety obligations. A safety policy on the shelf is not practical at all. If no one knows what the safety policy is, nobody can adhere to the policy and the airport, or airline is in violation of its own processes. 

Authority is the foundation of a safety policy

When the accountable executive signs off on the safety policy that person makes a commitment to safety which is a commitment of zero tolerance to compromise aviation safety. In addition, this safety policy includes a just-culture where it becomes fundamental to safety to discover hazards and incidents at an early stage to make organizational changes for continuous safety improvements. The safety policy does therefore not only affect this one organization, but all organizations in the aviation community. 

Communicating the safety policy to all personnel is info-sharing. Info-sharing is critical to an airport or airline to gather intelligence for the discovery of safety critical information. Without a safety policy in place, and a safety policy that is approved at the organizational policy level, either an airport or airline have the authority to promote safe operational processes. An undefined, or unwritten safety policy does not delegate to any persons the authority to implement safety promotions.

Without a safety policy an airport or airline do not have tool to develop processes to improve effectiveness and safety. Any on-the-fly process is not a tool for continuous improvement to further improve safety within an organization, or to establish a confidence level of safety performance. Safety improvements are not achieved by improvisations of processes, but by the safety authority to document, prepare, test, assess and implement. 

The safety policy is communicated to all personnel as a link in a chain of all safety policies to be shared within other organizations. Safety improvement is not an independent task, but an info-share task between airports and airlines to improve safety without the loss of life of equipment. Sharing of the safety policy within an organization and ensuring that all are aware of their safety obligations is a step forward in identifying, maintaining, and improving

Cost-factors are results of safety parameters

safe operational processes. Aviation safety has historically been in an experimental stage of preventing accidents by not defining safety parameter cost-factors. By applying a safety policy and ensuring all are aware of their accountability to safety, the aviation industry is moving from undefined cost-factor parameters and into econometrics design parameters.

CatalinaNJB

Review Your Safety Policy

Review Your Safety Policy

An insightful Post from CatalinaNJB

There is an expectation that the safety policy is reviewed periodically for continuing applicability. A safety policy establishes guidance for safety objectives and goals for the safe operation of an airport or aircraft. A safety policy is a practical applied document and tailored to each operator for the purpose of being accepted by all personnel within the organization.  Policies that are not accepted by all personnel are impractical to operations and more of a deterrent to safety than no policy at all. A policy that is influenced by a third-party requirement is a not an unfettered policy and is also a deterrent for the safe operation of an airport or aircraft.  

A Safety Policy Review is based on data only. 

The expectation that the safety policy is reviewed periodically is to identify processes that has influenced the policy and that the policy is still applicable to detected, or undetected changes of operations. 

There are several parties involved in airport or airline operations, from tenants, customers, auditors and the environment itself. When there is interference in development, or maintenance of a safety policy the policy sets the stage for unexpected, or undecided results.

When operational changes go undetected they becomes “normal” to operations. A policy may at first sight appear to be applicable indefinite, since at the time of implementation its intentions were to promote safety and if the policy is questioned, or reviewed it could appear to be an attack on safety itself.  Over the history of aviation, it has been unheard of to question safety. However, by allowing for a safety review of the policy, or in other words question safety, new doors are opened for continuous improvement to aviation safety.

Almost safe doesn't cut it.

Reviewing the safety policy is a responsibility of the accountable executive. This does not necessary imply that the accountable executive, who often is removed from the operational processes, does the actual review, but implies that the accountable executive accepts accountability to the safety policy itself. 

This renewed safety policy is then signed by accountable executive and promoted throughout the organization with explanation of why these changes were necessary for the safe operations 

of airport or aircraft.

CatalinaNJB