Where Birds Don't Fly

An SMS enterprise is required to implement a non-punitive reporting policy. The intent of this policy is that more incident reports or near misses will be submitted to management when there is a policy in place that a contributor will not be reprimanded, fired, criminally charged, or other punitive actions, such as a reduction in pay or benefits, will be taken against them. An implied benefit from a non-punitive reporting system is that an operator, being airline or airport, will learn from the content of these reports and implement changes to operations as needed for safety improvements.  An objective of a non-punitive SMS policy is to support the overarching SMS policy goals of an SMS enterprise. Examples of an SMS policy goals are to have a goal-setting process in place, processes for live hazard identification, reporting and corrective actions, processes to train personnel, a process to operate with a daily quality control program as a prerequisite for their quality assurance p...

A successful safety management system (SMS) includes strategy solutions for setting goals for the safe operations of an aircraft or airport, and for members of an SMS Enterprise to be involved in an ongoing development of the safety management system itself.  Traditionally, in an organization, all positions are established by authority of command, decision-making authority, and signatory authority. An organizational chart of a traditional organization takes the form of a pyramid, where the president, CEO of the corporation, or the board, has final authority. From the top-level in the pyramid, at the CEO level, the pyramid continues upwards, spreads outwards and takes on the shape of an inverted pyramid to reach as many customers as possible. People who are working within this type of traditional organizational structure have little or no impact on decisions made by the CEO.  In this type of highly successful and accepted organizational structure, a conflict arises between the ...