Safety Management Auditing

[tubby linton]

Would those of you who undertake safety management auditingfor your airline please tell me some more about the auditing process,and the rules and regulations of auditing.

[jumpinjackdash]

Here is a link which is a good starting point:
SKYbrary - Safety Audits (http://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Safety_Audits)

ICAO doc 9859 ed 1 has a good section on it, but ed 2 does not mention much about it anymore.

[Burr Styers]

if you can get hold of the "Operators Flight safety handbook" published by the GAIN organisation in Dec 2001, it contains a suggested and comprehensive safety audit checklist in appendix D.

A google search should throw up some Ms Word or PDF examples of the handbook, which is actually pretty good in itself.

Don't be put off by the vintage (2001), the checklist and its content are still valid today, and you can use it as a basis to develop your own.

How often to audit ? We are audited by IOSA on a bi annual basis, I interleave those audits with our own "in house" safety audits - kind of "howgozit" audit before we get the industrial strength version.

HTH

[Miles Gustaph]

...don't you audit against the Operations Manual, MOE, "manual" etc, and it's compliance with "whatever" regulations are applicable for your geographical and industry related area or industry specified standard, e.g. JAR-OPS, UK CAA-145, ISO 9001:2008 etc...

[tubby linton]

Thank you for all your replies.

[Burr Styers]

Miles

I think you miss the point. A safety audit is a pan organisational audit which asks top level questions. You cant audit against a flight ops manual, A safety audit will ask for instance " How are flight crew informed of their companys operational limitations" ? You would reply - "The comapny Operations manual - Part A". Auditor, "Show me a copy", You "here it is" Auditor, "who is the person responsible for this publication" ? You - "Why me, the chief pilot/fleet manager/managing pilot"Audit "how often is this manual reviewed"? You "Twice yearly, and it is structured acccording to EASA/JAA/NAA whoever" Auditor "thanks very much and goodbye. The safety audit is about components of your organisation being in place, not the content of those components. You have to think big picture - not flight ops centric HTH

[kamikaze lover]

I know this is way past the due time but I need someone to help me make audit checklists for my airline. I am a pilot but I have been accorded a quality assurance role and I need to make checklists to audit our maintenance, operations, outstation etc, and these are just internal stuff! where to begin?

HELP!

[Miles Magister]

KL
This is a fair sized job. Contact a professional. 2 I have used who both have experience in Africa are Global Air Training (http://www.globalairtraining.com/) and Hawkes Aviation Services (http://www.hawkesaviation.co.uk/) who specialisze in SMS. Both were descent companies when I used them.

MM

[777AV8R]

Tubby...check your PMs.

[CaptainBernie]

What an awesome opportunity! The principles of the whole audit scene are based on ISO-9000 quality management. You asked "where to begin?" Let's assume that all required manuals are in place and they reflect the regulatory requirements. Start with the Tables of Contents and make them your audit chapter headings. They look at the requirements stated in the manuals and repose them as questions. For example, change, "The director of Operations will..." to "Does the Director of operations..." Then identify the paragraph that requires it and the document that you saw that proves it was done.

Establish an answer key, such as Documented (Y/N); Implemented (Y/N), and Not Required (N/A). After the audit is complete, the departments or organizations that have a no for documented or implemented should prepare an action plan to correct the shortcoming.

You can further refine the audit to state observations for areas of improvement. Finally, when the checklist is developed, give it to responsible heads to use as their progressive internal audit program. This speeds up the audit process when you show up, and gives them an ongoing look as how things are going in their departments. If your company ever decides to obtain accreditation the audit matched against a formal industry program can help in performing a "gap analysis." Good luck and have fun with this opportunity!