ASW #4: (More than) A Couple of Words on Safety Management Systems (TBT)
Here we are on day 4 of Airport Safety Week and it’s a Thursday, so I am going to cheat a little here and do a massive Throwback Thursday post covering some of my favourite Safety Management System (SMS) related posts.
Some of these posts go back a long way in my own SMS journey, you can even see me acknowledge possible mistakes (don’t tell my wife). Unfortunately, even though SMS has been around for 20 years, it still isn’t “working” as well as it could be. I’ve travelled a great deal since I started this blog and I have interacted with people from many countries that work in airport operations and safety management but it seems people are either still trying to convince others or be convinced of the merit of SMS or people are arguing over complex philosophical groundings that turn practitioners away.
Well, we don’t have much choice but to push on and do our best for safety…
And in that vein, I’d like to offer two posts or series associated with each of the “four pillars” of SMS.
Policy & Objectives
I tend to call this pillar, “SMS Foundations”. After all, this is where you build the basis of your overall system. Obviously, it involves the establishment of a safety policy and setting safety objectives but it also includes accountabilities, coordination and documentation.
Safety Governance Systems
Does everyone working at the airport do safety management? Yes and no. I tend to think the doing of safety management is for the management level of the organisation.
Accountability
I had a run in with an “official” at a kids sporting match. You can read how I turned that into a lesson on accountability in safety management.
Safety Risk Management
There isn’t a subject I have written more about and its hard not to get started again. Instead, here are two series I wrote on the subject some time ago but I still refer them to on a regular basis.
Bow-Tie Risk Assessment Series
I’m a big fan of the bow-tie risk model. If used correctly, it can provide support to a risk assessment process from the very beginning. And it can grow in complexity if the situation requires it.
Risk Evaluation Series
In this series, I went to town on the Likelihood-Consequence Matrix (aka Probability-Impact Graph or PIG). I don’t like them, I think they offer limited value and in the hands of many, they are downright dangerous.
Safety Assurance
For me, this is where the real power of SMS comes from. This is the process that provides accountability and ensures the ongoing validity of our safety risk assessments. For this pillar, I have a series of posts I wrote for another website and a very recent post that I haven’t plugged very well.
Safety Assurance Series
In this series of posts, I looked at the development and monitoring of critical safety risk controls. It is a system I have used and further developed at airports I’ve managed.
Safety Performance Indicators
Everyone knows the type of indicators they don’t want - lagging. But how do you get what you do want?
Safety Promotion
I haven’t actually written much on this pillar. I guess because I was trying to live it rather than write about it. However, I have written about training and learning a couple of times, so here are two examples.
Wildlife Training with a Difference
At one of my airports, we had a bit of a snake problem. To ensure we didn’t go hurting ourselves when dealing with them, we got some training in snake handling. By far, the best training course I have ever done.
Better Emergency Exercises
This has been my most popular post in the last 18 months. I’ve been part of and observed a bunch of aerodrome emergency responses and exercises. I’ve noticed a few good things and a few bad things.
One more day of Airport Safety Week left. Tomorrow’s theme is Wellbeing and in the current climate this is probably the most important theme and the hardest thing to achieve.
Image credit: Digital Buggu (via Pexels)
