Implemented Safety Management System is a set of regulations, which allow industry to establish best-practice that fits different cultures and place the main emphasis and duty on improving safety performance.
The ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPS) put rules into action in several Annexes to the Chicago Convention that require the implementation of a Safety Management System by the following aviation service provider organizations: aircraft operators; aircraft maintenance organizations; air navigation services providers; airport operators; training organizations; and aircraft manufacturers.
Safety Management System (SMS) is a systematic approach to managing safety, including the necessary organizational structures, accountabilities, policies and procedures (ICAO). Also Safety Management System is a proactive and integrated approach to managing safety including the necessary organizational structures, accountabilities, policies, and procedures (EASA). These two definitions can be explained by these three core aspects of SMS:
Systematic: Safety management activities are per a pre-determined plan and applied consistently throughout the organization;
Pro-active: An approach that emphasizes hazard identification and risk control and mitigation, before events that affect safety occur;
Explicit: All safety management activities are documented and visible.
A Safety Management System is more than just the sum of its individual components, an operating manual and a set of procedures. It requires SMS to be integrated into the day-to-day activities of the service provider, the development of an organizational culture – safety culture that reflects the safety policy and objectives, different way of thinking – safety culture, a systems or systematic approach. All of this requires a real “team effort” as regulators and airlines are all part of one large system. Working as a team it will be possible to improve an already highly impressive safety record, and allow organizations to conduct more of their own oversight and assurance. SMS is more than just the sum of its individual components, and these components should not be considered in isolation, rather as the totality of the system it represents.
Safety Management System is composed of four functional components and twelve elements, and its implementation shall be in proportion with the size of the organization and the complexity of the services provided.
Safety Policy: Management commitment, safety accountability and responsibilities, appointment of key safety personnel, coordination of emergency response planning and SMS documentation;
Safety Risk Management: Hazard identification, safety risk assessment and mitigation;
Safety Assurance: Safety performance monitoring and measurement, the management of change and continuous improvement of the SMS;
Safety Promotion: Training and education, safety communication.
There are many benefits of implementing SMS by service providers: Continuing authorization to operate, Improving safety performance, Continuing improving and managing of change, Reducing costs associated with accidents and incidents, Increasing employee productivity and improving staff relations and morale, Improving operation efficiency, Increasing regulatory compliance, Easing access to finance and lowering insurance premiums, Promoting a positive safety culture, corporate and social responsibility.
SMS is essentially a quality management approach to controlling risk which provides the organizational framework to support sound safety culture. For certificated operators such as airlines, air taxi operators, and aviation training organizations, the SMS can form the core of the company’s safety efforts and also serve as an efficient means of interfacing with state oversight programs. The SMS provides the company’s management with a detailed roadmap for monitoring safety-related processes.
It is of critical importance to standardize the SMS functions to the point that there is a common understanding of the meaning of SMS among all concerned organizations and authorities, and because of the diverse relationships between the rule-making bodies and the variety of aviation service provider organizations. This understanding has led to the current environment in which the focus is turning within the organization to the specific need for a Safety Management System, not just driven by regulations but by the organizations desire to promote the most effective business practices.
Tihomir Džingov
