CAAN Souvenir 2010.FH10 - Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal

CAAN Souvenir 2010ESAFETY MANAGEMENTSYSTEM (SMS):An effective approachto manage safetyvolution of safety management“An accident is the ‘tip of the iceberg’ the ‘what youcan see'. More of the iceberg is visible and there areclues but then nothing is done. It is what happens beforehandthat is crucial in the prevention of accidents and seriousincidents. That is the hidden part below the waters surface.The unknown latent risks that are yet to be discovered…”SteveHull, Senior Air Safety Investigator (Flywise Issue 169)An SMS is systematic in that safety managementTraditional systems for the management of safetyactivities are carried out in accordance with a predeterminedplan, and applied in a consistent mannerare set in motion only after some triggering event,such as an accident, incident or reportable event,throughout the organization. It is proactive by takingdiscloses a safety concern. For this reason, suchan approach that emphasizes prevention, throughapproaches may be considered outcome-drivenhazards identification and risk control and mitigationand reactive. Safety improvement measuresmeasures, before events that affect safety occur.introduced usually address the identified safetyIt is also explicit, in that all safety managementconcern exclusively. The ‘what’, ‘who’, ‘when’ andPratap Babu Tiwari* activities are documented, visible and performed‘how’ were often identified but not the ‘why’. Asas an essential component of management activities.such, the organizational and environmental contextsin which errors were made were often neglected, and measuresIt is a performance-based approachadopted therefore often addressed only symptoms. Compliance with ICAO Standards and RecommendedFurthermore, lines of accountability for safety monitoring and Practices (SARPs) has been a cornerstone of internationalsafety responses may not always be clearly defined, and if civil aviation safety. However, a rapidly expanding industrythey are, safety accountability generally stops at the middle and resource limitations within oversight authorities make itmanagement level.increasingly difficult to efficiently and effectively sustain aToday, Safety Management Systems aim to enhance the prescriptive approach to the management of safety basedorganizational approach to managing a safe and successful upon regulatory compliance exclusively. It is essential toaviation operation. The study of accident causation today complement the regulatory approach to the management offocuses on organizational processes, latent conditions, safety with a performance-based approach, which includes:workplace conditions, adequacy of defenses as well as active 1.agreement between oversight authorities andfailures. Safety management systems are based on the fact operators/services providers on the safety performance tothat there will always be hazards and risks, so proactive be expected from the operators/services providers, 2.management is needed to identify and control these threats agreement between oversight authorities andto safety, before they lead to mishaps. Today’s managed operators/services providers on safety requirements necessaryapproach to safety and to SMS has given greater emphasis to achieve safety indicators and targets and oversight authoritiesnot only on proactive but also to predictive system to manage and 3. Oversight authority verifies achievement of the agreedsafety and also requires a change in the way that people safety performance or its lack thereof, and operators/servicesthink on safety, a collective perception, that may be referred propose corrective measures for observed deviations.to as safety culture. The management of safety today conveys It is an integrated approach to manage safetythe notion that the management of safety is a business processthat must be considered at the same level and along the sameCurrently, certain elements may exist but they are not integrated,lines as any other business process.the quality assurance, accountability structures and thereporting culture need to be developed. It integrates operationsTherefore, a definition of safety must be provided to grasp and technical systems with financial and human resourcethe fundamental concepts of SMS. Safety can be defined as management to achieve safe operations with as low asthe state in which the risk to harm to persons or damage to reasonably practicable risk.property is reduced to, and maintained at or below, anacceptable level through a continuing process of hazardIt is a top-down approachidentification and risk management.Safety cannot be achieved by simply introducing rules orThe salient features of Safety Managementdirectives concerning the procedures to be followed bySystem (SMS)operational employees; it encompasses most of the activitiesof the organization. For this reason, safety management mustIt is systematic, proactive and explicitstart from senior management, and the effects on safety mustSafety Management System (SMS) is a systematic, explicit be examined at all levels of the organization. So, SMS is topand proactive process for managing safety that integrates down driven system, which means safety management mustoperations and technical systems with financial and human start from senior management and that the Accountableresource management to achieve safe operations with as low Manager of the organization is responsible for theas reasonably practicable risk.implementation and continuing compliance of the SMS.Without the wholehearted support of the Accountable2712 th Anniversary Publication