Project Management

A paper airplane has no other direction but down.

Safety Management System (SMS) in aviation does not make good business sense in its current concept of abstract ideas, plans and intentions but without facts and tangible results. The cost for regional airlines to implement a regulatory required SMS were almost unbearable. SMS had promised the airline industry that there would be a reduction in accidents, because SMS would solve all problems. However, SMS did not deliver what was promised when an airline had a fatal accident some years later. SMS was and illusion and many fell in the trap believing that intentions will make a difference. It did not, and it does not make good business to run a business based on intentions. Imagine if major suppliers demanded cash return because of their intentions to sell services or products. Intentions in business don’t hold water. SMS was sold to the aviation industry as an intention to reduce accidents. The intent was perfect, but accidents are still happening.

The concept of SMS was sold to operators as a tool to help companies identify safety risks before they become bigger problems. In countries were SMS became a regulatory requirement, the aviation industry was required to put a safety management system in place as an extra layer of protection to help save lives. The intent is good, but it is still not possible to apply data to accidents that did not happen or future accidents that may not happen. In addition, when SMS became a regulatory requirement the first priority for any operator became to maintain regulatory compliance. The SMS requirement changed safety from being always first priority to become paramount. This change may have been unintended, but it became a vital change in how safety in aviation is managed. When safety is paramount an enterprise has established the foundation and base for their SMS Project Management and Quality Leadership.

Project Management and Quality Leadership make good business sense. There are several variables, both common and special cause variables, but a common denominator for a successful business is management and leadership. There are not many businesses that maintained success and good business sense by ignoring management and leadership even if their business first became a success by fluke, random or chance of unidentified needs.

SMS is a businesslike approach of Project Planning and Quality Leadership.

NextGen of SMS, or the new way of approaching SMS makes good business sense and should be embraced by a successful aviation industry. A Safety Management System without a Project Management and Quality Leadership is a system without directions and a system without directions goes nowhere, or if it goes somewhere, nobody knows where it is taking you. Every expectation within a Safety Management System needs a project plan for an enterprise to maintain regulatory compliance. There is an expectation that a Safety Policy is in place. So, what good does it do to make a safety policy? It makes us feel good with several statements of good and safe intents. But this is where it ends. Unless there is a project plan in place how to utilize this safety policy, it’s not worth much to safety. An effective project plan is supported by goals, and more important, how to achieve these goals.

When the regulator conducts Program Validation Inspections (PVI) or SMS Assessments, they read the Safety Policy, and all looks good. After they have read the safety policy and feel good about the Enterprise’s intent, they come onsite to find out what the safety policy does for safety. Without a safety policy project plan the Enterprise is not prepared to show, or demonstrate, how the intent of the safety policy functions. The SMS plan was perfect, but the Enterprise had not allowed for the policy any opportunity to raise to the occasion and bolster its potential.

For a Safety Management System to be effective, the SMS should be run as a businesslike approach to safety where the ROI is the change in cost of safety improvements. The NextGen of a Safety Management System is Leadership Qualities and Project Management.

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