SMS Reviews

A role for an accountable executive (AE) are to review their safety management system (SMS) and determine their SMS deviation from its planned course and path. A fully functional SMS cannot fail since it paints a true picture of operations, and any deviations from the path come from operational drift. An SMS enterprise operate with processes for conducting reviews or audits of their safety management system at regular intervals, and reviews or audits for cause or on-demand, of the safety management system when there are planned deviations from their current SMS. In addition to reviews and audits of deviations, an SMS enterprise operates with processes for reviewing the safety management system to determine its effectiveness. The first step to determine an SMS effectiveness is to determine what an effective SMS looks like. 

There are several views of what an effective safety management system should look like, and one effective SMS may be different for one organization to another. Effectiveness also changes with new tools, new inventions, or changes in expectations. A simple example are the changes from a paperformat SMS to electronic SMS and to a live cloudbased and automated SMS. 

The foundation of an effective safety management system is that the system conforms to regulatory requirements. Regulatory requirements are the foundation for an effective SMS, the foundation for airline or airport operations, and the foundation for issuance of their operating certificates. There are twelve factors of building blocks forming the platform for an effective SMS. A factor is circumstance, fact, or influence that contributes to a result or outcome of the SMS. When one of the blocks drift away, or deviate from its path, there is a change in the effectiveness of an SMS. The twelve building blocks are human factors, organizational factors, supervision factors, environmental factors, trust factors, learning factors, accountability factors, information sharing factors, data factors, information factors, knowledge factors and comprehension factors. When combined in one system, these blocks of interacting systems form the foundation for SMS effectiveness to be built. 

Conventional wisdom is that after a goal is established, the next steps in the processes are to wait for the goals to be reached. Goals are not reached by doing nothing but are only reached by hard work. Operating with a safety management system is hard work and it is without a guarantee that this hard work will payoff, or that future accidents are eliminated. SMS is hard work by applying a daily quality control system and monitor processes for drift within its path and deviates outside of its path. Operating with an effective SMS, or a high-performing SMS is also hard work and requires strategic operating processes.

Several items are tools to operate with an effective SMS. A formalized safety policies is the first step to a successful SMS. Effective and regular communication about safety is another sign of a successful SMS. Having safety policies that are frequently communicated and accessible to everyone is important. An accountable executive is the base of support for behavior-based safety and accountability. It is crucial for an effective SMS that habits around safety are established. An SMS enterprise must focus on behavior-based safety, which is a safety methodology that focuses on improving safety through habit creation.

Unsafe behavior, or deviation from processes, are naturally habitual for workers, and they are often unaware of their own unsafe behaviors. Oftentimes, an activity has been done the wrong way for so long that workers do not consider an incorrect behavior in many cases. SMS organizations can create acceptable behavior by forming positive habits while breaking old ones. According to behavioral expert James Clear, it takes 66 days on average to develop a new habit. That means that time must be dedicated to continuous improvement in order to achieve results. The three main triggers to change habits are reminder (the trigger that initiates the behavior), routine (the behavior itself, or action taken), and reward (the benefit gained from doing the behavior). An SMS enterprise with an outstanding safety records has developed a systematic method to measure what is going on throughout their entire operation. It enables them to quickly and easily understand why something went wrong when it does. 

The ability to identify high-risk situations quickly and precisely should be on every SMS manager’s and AE’s checklist for safety performance. Leading indicators can provide insight for an SMS enterprise to predict what could happen and take action to avoid accidents or incidents from occurring.  SMS enterprise with low injury rates equip their workers for success and they do so through more than just processes and safety management programs. They leverage cutting-edge tools and systems to keep workers prepared and ready to handle whatever they need to.

The most impactful safety management system is one that links worker with easy access the information they need and report an issue. SMS enterprises needs SMS managers who recognize the importance of continuous learning and schedule regular learning activities. Learning should be easy, practical and be tailored to expected job performance. Workers that may become leaders also needs to be prepared with tasks, tools, and support to take on leader roles when they are ready. Learning activities for managers, supervisors and workers should instill knowledge of proper practices, develop awareness of how to manage hazards to reduce risks, and gain specialized skills when their specific roles require unique preparations. The foundation of learning is for personnel to know where their comfort zone is, that they must step outside of their comfort zone, and have the tools, skills, and support required to move forward beyond their comfort zone.  

Empowering personnel through the safety management system yields tremendous outcomes for an SMS enterprise. Often, the challenge with a safety management system is when focus is on preventing injuries by highlighting how bad things can get and scaring workers straight. Scaring people and information overload does very little to motivate workers to perform better. This results in a fear-based culture rather than one based on success, thus reducing the morale. A successful safety management system consistently promotes proper safety through continuous education, consistent reinforcement, and ongoing improvements.

It is natural to want to get the job finished on schedule, or even ahead of time, but with a “get it done quick” attitude is the focus, there is an increased risk for incidents to happen. Personnel may take shortcuts to “get the job done” and deviate from a specified path. Shortcuts may not be a wrong process to complete the job, but a shortcut is a deviation from a planned process with an acceptable track record. A shortcut is overcontrolling a process and over time, overcontrolling processes may cause other or additional hazards that are unknown and unaccounted for.  An accident impacts productivity more than anything in a business, so make sure that the correlation between process and productivity is comprehended by all. This is not only applicable to the frontline workers, but also to supervisors, managers, board of directors and the accountable executive. 

Personnel should feel interested in reporting a hazard or potential issue as they observe it. When everyone feels a sense of responsibility for carrying out safety policies and procedures, the entire organization will improve effectiveness of the safety management system. 

Commitment to safety and establishing a safe and healthy culture is never-ending. There will always be areas of opportunity for improvement, new employees to train, new hazards to address and more, which are challenges for an effective SMS, but it is also highly rewarding when goals are achieved. 

There are several methods used to assess the effectiveness of a safety management system. One of these methods is to apply data from completed processes, such as corrective action plans, where an SMS enterprise assess human factors, organizational factors, supervision factors and environmental factors. Other factors affecting a safety management system is the just-culture factors, which includes trust, learning, accountability, and information sharing. In addition to SMS operations and the just culture factors, the learning factor is a foundation for building a healthy SMS.

Goals are key performance indicators (KPI) for assessing the effectiveness of a safety management system. There are multiple goal-setting methods, and the 14-step system is an effective and proven system. Goals are derived from the hazard register, from industry expectations, from customer service recommendations, from any of the SMS components, or from any other data base with flexibility to be tailored to operations, size, and complexity of a specific SMS operator. 

Factors affecting SMS effectiveness is assessed and classified to a sensitivity level. This sensitivity level is not about being sensitive to feeling good or bad while working, but a sensitivity level applied to the factors themselves. Sensitivity levels are applied to operations, just-culture, and learning. A comprehensive sensitivity assessment tool is applied to establish an effectiveness baseline.  
 

The review of a safety management system is ongoing in the daily quality control system. When it is time for a complete review for effectiveness, all data is already surveyed, determined, collected, recorded, classified, and reported in the safety management system. The final step in assessing the effectiveness of an SMS is to allocate goals to sensitivity levels.   



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