Bringing an SMS Manual to Life

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Bringing an SMS Manual to Life

• Simon Roberts
• SMS Programme Lead
• UK CAA

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What is an SMS?

• Its how we stay safe
• Needs to go beyond prescriptive rules
• It recognises human and organisational factors
• Its more than a manual
• Its what you do

Through safety management systems, we can shape
aviations future by continuing to drive down
safety risk. John Hickey, FAA
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Prescriptive Rules are not a Complete Solution

• Aviation is diverse
• Regulations alone do not ensure safety
• Differing operating models and environments
• Large and Small
• Complex and Non-complex
• High Risk and Low Risk

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The Big Picture

• Aviation is a complex system with lots of
  components and players
• Safety Improvements need to recognise the total
  system
• The sum of the parts dont necessarily equal the
  whole
• The aircraft and system design needs to continue
  to adapt to the environment they are operated in.
• it needs collaboration and the sharing of safety
  information.

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The Total Aviation System
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International Safety Management Requirements
Annexes 1, 6, 8, 11, 13 14
ICAO Doc 9859 (SMM)
Annex 19
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The EASA Management SystemSMS in European Rules
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So how do we bring an SMS Manual to life?

• Keep it simple
• Make it integrated
• Recognise human and organisational factors
• Establish the right organisational culture
• Assure yourself it is working
• Increase your corporate knowledge
• Know your biggest risks

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Keep It Simple

• SMS does not have to be complicated
• Its more than a manual
• It should help you make the right decisions with
  the right information
• Make it work for you
• It should add safety value
• The Regulator plays a role in helping you to
  achieve this

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SMS in its simplest form

• Actively look for safety issues in your
  operations, products or services
• Take action to reduce the risks of those safety
  issues becoming unwanted events
• Monitor your activities to be sure that you have
  appropriately controlled those risks.
• An SMS does not have to be complicated to be
  effective.

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Keeping it simple

• Dont reinvent the wheel
• We have all been doing Safety Management
• Enhance existing operational processes and
  procedures
• Utilise your own expert judgement
• Involve your own people

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SMS Integration

• It should be integrated across the organisation
  and with other systems
• Collaboration and information sharing with other
  organisations
• Your contracted organisations
• Organisations you interact with
• Your customers and end users
• The Regulator
• Regulatory oversight needs to be integrated
• Manage your contractors

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Management of Contractors

• Your contractors generate risks to your
  organisation
• You need to know what they are
• Have a look at their risk register
• What is their reporting culture like?
• Your contractors also protect you
• Are they applying the risk mitigations you want
  them to?
• How are you assessing how effective they are
  applying your risk mitigations?
• Assurance of your contractors
• Compliance and Safety Risk Assurance

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Collaborate with your Contractors

• For Safety Critical contractors
• Are they invited to your safety meetings?
• Are you able to attend their safety meetings?
• Do you share data?
• Training and Promotion
• Consider providing training or workshops for
  safety critical contractors
• Share safety information with your contractors

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System Design and human factors

• We need to improve how we design systems to
  reflect the way humans operate them and the
  environment they are operated in.
• What can designers do to reduce maintenance
  error?

• Improve designs
• Improve maintenance instructions
• Identify error traps
• Identify critical systems with high error rates

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Safety Culture

• The effectiveness of an SMS hinges on your
  organisations safety culture
• A positive safety culture is the result of safety
  leadership, effective Human Factors programmes,
  decision making and accountabilities at all
  levels
• A safety culture that includes a just culture
  promotes open reporting
• Safety management has to be a shared
  responsibility

Safety management feeds the safety culture of an
organisation, which in turn feeds the data bases
that give us insight into the risks our
organisation faces.
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How would your organisation answer the following
questions?

• Is there managerial encouragement towards
  excessive risk taking?
• Are operational staff incentivized to bend rules
  to get the job done
• Are workarounds and excessive risk taking
  discouraged
• Are senior management making reasonable efforts
  to improve safety culture?
• Are safety risks being managed to an acceptable
  level?
• Are employee attitudes to safety compatible with
  corporate policy?

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Can you senior management answer the following
questions?

• How safe is your operation? (What worries you the
  most?)
• How do you know? (How are you measuring and
  monitoring it?)
• What are your biggest business and safety risks?
• What are you doing about them?
• How do you know you are taking the right actions
  in managing your risks?
• What are you doing about the CAAs Significant 7?
• What are you getting from your SMS?

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Regulatory Oversight of SMS

• Our oversight will be joined up
• Oversight of the parts does not equal the
  oversight of the whole system
• We will assess the compliance and performance of
  the SMS
• We are moving towards performance based oversight
• Requires a different regulatory approach with new
  tools
• We are on our own journey

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Significant Seven Bow Tie Project

• Templates focused on relevant risks to each
  Significant Seven
• Created by multi-disciplined CAA/Industry Subject
  Matter Experts
• Focused on Large Fixed Wing Commercial Air
  Transport FW Operations
• Total System Approach (Third Party Risks)
• Freely available for UK industry to tailor to
  their operation and use within SMS
• No specific software required (PDF/ Visio/
  Images/ BowTieXP)
• For the Regulator State Safety Programme (SSP)
• Performance Based Oversight
• Data collection and Monitoring
• Influencing Europe

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Materials Available Template Project

• Core Significant 7 bowties
• Prominent precursor events (identified through
  CAA intelligence)
• Fully completed with all elements and additional
  information
• 13 Supplementary bowties
• Other precursor events
• 3 Contributory 3 bowtie
• Human performance, environment and technical
  aspects of operations
• Guidance Material to assist tailoring
• www.caa.co.uk/bowtie

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The Global Challenge
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Summary

• When Safety Management is what you do and is part
  of your day to day activities you will get a
  return on your investment.
• An SMS manual that sits on a shelf wont!
• We want risk management to be at the centre of
  your future activities (and ours).
• Keep it as simple as you can!
• SMS is collaborative and should be integrated

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Questions?