When will airlines start preparing safety cases?

[Ghostdancer]

I have followed this thread with a lot of interest over the last few weeks and would now like to throw my own thoughts into the pot with regard to Shell Managements view below.

Quote:

"The steps are:

• Top management commitment
• Prepare a safety case
• Define accoiuntabilities
• Implement an SMS
• Hold people accountable

If you do that the workers will follow the right culture."

No problem with this as a general approach.

My view of SMS is that it is a very simple concept; it is the proactive management of safety. The pillars of a good SMS are already established as concepts, and much is Regulated for; a Flight Data Monitoring Programme, a good open reporting system, a method of risk assessment and analysis off the results, implementation of recommendations out of that programme, an appropriate management system, and an independent quality system to monitor the whole operation.

Let’s look at the steps quoted above in a little more detail. I think Helen49’s remarks have been overlooked during the debate:

Quote:

"Unless there is an intent and culture of safety at the 'top' of the organisation, all the systems, documents, safety cases etc in the world will not help you. If the culture is there, the simplest of documents and systems will go a long way towards enabling a safe operation. Simple!"

The most important element of a good SMS is getting the right culture, on that I hope we can all agree? The problem we now face as an industry is that “top management” now see SMS as another Regulatory hurdle to overcome. Talking in broad terms, very few senior managers appear to understand the importance of the cultural aspects and grasp that they already possess the basic building blocks for an SMS within their organisations. Senior Management perception in my recent experience is that their commitment ends with a signature to a safety policy.

Safety Case: has anyone ever thought to consider that the initial safety case for a start up organisation is the manuals suite which has to be accepted by the Regulator? These manuals have to meet the minimum standards, set and define the scope of approval/areas of operations, along with Accountability, Responsibility and the procedures within an organisation to support those elements. I raise this as a discussion point for debate and learning, because the original question was “when will airlines start producing safety cases”. The answer could be maybe they have produced the vast majority of this work prior to start up?

Implement an SMS: I believe the basic pillars have already been outlined earlier. The implementation is about top management/senior management being seen to say and do the right things, and allowing a just and learning culture through the application of continual improvement techniques and the proactive management of risks. This should be simple and understood by all. The “holding people accountable” element should extend to the top management of an organisation, as actually they are the ones who are accountable. Top management need to understand they can delegate responsibility, not accountability.

Ultimately SMS is all about getting the right culture into an organisation. Don’t let anyone fool you otherwise. How you choose to do this is largely down to you, no one model fits all, it is the ability to take elements from many different ideas, concepts and models and make them work for you that is important. The SMS should ultimately be tailored to the needs and complexity of your organisation and your employees will judge your success through playing their part in the culture. We need to learn from one another, are all in this together, and should respect one another’s opinions. I fear sometimes we are all in extreme danger of losing sight of common sense during the SMS debate.