Tag Archives: aviation safety management

Management Oversight

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Sextant Readings Solutions - Risk Management Oversight

Management Oversight

While executives have ultimate responsibility for risk and safety, it is not always practical for them to know or be aware of all the detail. They typically rely on appointed staff to provide them with reports to satisfy themselves that risk and safety is managed effectively.

An effective SMS Information management solution provides key insight into the risk management system to provide executives with status reports, outstanding actions, alerts and gap analysis.

A dashboard facility is available to bring focus to what needs closer scrutiny. The dashboard is flexible, allowing each individual user to determine the information that is of relevance to them.

Action management highlights actions pending and those overdue. Workflow management provides the ability to route information across the business as appropriate. Escalation management is provided to alert where the management system is not been responded to.

A comprehensive range of standard reports is further complemented with an intuitive report designer, enabling users to create and add to the library reports they find of interest.

All management systems generate reviews of systems, processes, people and risk assessments. These are managed with all relevant staff made aware of their responsibilities.

Intelligence from other sources of information within the business, can be made available in in an effective SMS Information Management solution to get closer to real time risk assessment, test assumptions and further strengthen the management system. An effective SMS Information Management solution must be a very open system, and is designed to share information with other sources of intelligence within an organization.

Change Management

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Sextant Readings Solutions - Change Management

Change Management

It is perfectly feasible to have the same control or barrier deployed to manage several risks. It may be that, in some situations, one control is declared effective in managing one risk but only partially effective in managing another and that is when there is a need for care to be taken.

Where the control is only partially effective, there may be a temptation to adjust or modify it to strengthen it in relation to a particular risk – but in doing so you are unaware of its deployment elsewhere.

To avoid introducing change that fixes one thing but weakens another, an effective SMS Information Management solution provides the ability through control-centric views to determine where else a control is deployed. This provides insight and awareness of what else needs to be considered ahead of any proposed change.

Incident Management

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Incident Management

All risk assessments are based on information available and considered at a particular point in time. As more information becomes available it provides us with the capability to test some of the assumptions made in terms of threats, risks, consequences, barriers and controls.

At the heart of all SMS Information Management solutions is a need to record and learn from incidents and near misses. This allows an investigation of facts and provides the opportunity to take positive actions to lessen future risks.

The SMIS provides the ability to overlay all events, near misses and incidents on the BowTie of the relevant risk, and so provide a visualization of how the risk is being managed and controlled in practice.

An effective SMIS provides the ability to manage incidents and it shares information to provide insight into how robust the management system is. The intelligence that provides this input can be taken from other information sources within the organization.

Risk Lifecycle

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Sextant Readings Solutions - Risk Life Cycle

Risk Lifecycle

Risks need to be identified, assessed, treated and managed to a point where the organization is comfortable with their risk exposure. This process needs to be robust to ensure all risks are systematically evaluated, assessed and managed effectively.

The Risk Identification process (HAZID) highlights the risks that need to be addressed. Risks are normally logically grouped and those groups are known and managed as Registers.

The inherent risk (the raw risk with no controls or barriers in place) is assessed and quantified (rated based on pre-defined criteria) before being reviewed against a risk matrix.

The placement of the quantified risk on the matrix will determine if the risk is acceptable, needs treated or is unacceptable. If risks are deemed unacceptable, senior executives need to be informed and a value judgment must be made as to whether operations can continue.

Quantification can be from a single perspective or multi-perspective (looking at the risk from a number of viewpoints – environment, people, reputation, profit, etc.)

Risks in need of treatment generate actions to identify and put in place adequate controls and barriers. Those actions are distributed and managed until conclusion.

Once controls or barriers have been put in place the risk is once again quantified to determine if further work is required.

The effectiveness of each control or barrier can be assessed, highlighting the need for additional controls where their effectiveness in isolation is deemed partial or ineffective.

A risk can be considered acceptable but the organization may choose to take additional actions to lower the risk further. This is managed as a target quantification.

The Risk Lifecycle is managed in a way that is simply not possible with spreadsheets.

Sextant Readings Solutions - Control visualization

Gap Analysis

Managing risk with spreadsheets lets you manage what you have in place.

Sextant Readings Solutions - Risk Gap Analysis

However, managing risk provides the same benefits, but also lets you manage what you don’t have in place. And it’s what you don’t have in place that often hurts an organization.

Sextant Readings Solutions - Visualization shows gaps

The visual representation of risks quickly highlights where there is exposure, where there are missing controls and where situations are not being managed effectively.

A risk management solution provides insight into gaps in the risk management system, and aims to alert the appropriate people to accept the situation or do something about it. The solution also provides alerts of risks, controls and actions not being owned or managed to enable appropriate action to address and rectify.

Sextant Readings Solutions - Risk Alerts

Spreadsheets provide no insight as to what is not in place and fail to make intelligent use of the data they contain.

Changing the culture of established organizations to enhance safety and risk management

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The challenge in changing the culture of an established organization, as Tom Howell comments in the LinkedIn group America’s Aviation Safety Management Solutions Forum, is possible but only with focus from the top. Quite often change at the top enables change management across the organization. When there are no management-change reason to trigger a change in culture to make focus on safety as the core, all too often the trigger is a major accident or event.
Change after an event is too late, as we know and reactive change can have seriously detrimental effects on the organization, the people and all stakeholders.
Somehow, – whether it is the company Board of Directors, peer pressure, associations or the enlightened hiring of strong, focused personnel into the safety role – something needs to trigger change to focus on predictive risk as a foundation for company survival. The economic interests of the company and its stakeholders are at risk unless the change is made in the management of the business based on professionalism and safety.

 

Sextant Readings Solutions – aviation professionals with focus on Compliance, Quality Management and Quality Assurance, Safety and Risk Management for the Aviation Industry, is an IS-BAO Support Services Affiliate and IS-BAO safety consultant and Auditor

AIN Online reports “Safety should be a core value for every business aviation operation, not just a priority,” according to Merlin Preuss, CBAA

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“Safety should be a core value for every business aviation operation, not just a priority, ” according to Merlin Preuss, CBAA

It’s wrong to label safety a priority, according to Merlin Preuss, vice president of government and legislative affairs for the Canadian Business Aviation Association. “That’s because it’s much too easy to change priorities as the world evolves,” he told last month’s Business Aviation Safety Seminar in Montreal (BASS).

 

 

Sextant Readings Solutions – aviation professionals with focus on Compliance, Quality Management and Quality Assurance, Safety and Risk Management for the Aviation Industry, is an IS-BAO Support Services Affiliate and IS-BAO safety consultant and Auditor

Norcal Business Aviation Association (NCBAA) Safety Day Event in San Jose May 2 featured Dr Tony Kern on Professionalism in Aviation

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Dr. Tony Kern is the CEO of Convergent Performance; a small, veteran owned “think tank” formed in 2004 and dedicated to reducing human error and improving performance in high risk environments such as aviation,military, healthcare and firefighting. Tony is one of the world’s leading authorities on human performance, has lectured on the subjects of applied human factors and performance improvement for nearly two decades, and is the author of seven books on the subject’

The Norcal Business Aviation Association (NCBAA) members were presented to a day of discussion about Professionalism in Aviation with topics like :

  • The Readiness Equation
  • The Baseline of Readiness: The Mind-Body Link
  • Lifelong Readiness: Continuous Improvement and Deliberate Practice
  • Level III Professionalism

We highly recommend Dr. Tony Kern’s insights for all aviation professionals

 

Sextant Readings Solutions – aviation professionals with focus on Compliance, Quality Management and Quality Assurance, Safety and Risk Management for the Aviation Industry, is an IS-BAO Support Services Affiliate and IS-BAO safety consultant and Auditor

Good new book on the dangers of bureaucratization of your SMS. Reviewed by Rick Darby representing Flight Safety Foundation and Aerosafety World

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 Proceed With Caution

Is over-specification of procedures a potential safety hazard?

BY RICK DARBY representing Flight Safety Foundation and AeroSafety World

A Never-Ending Story

Trapping Safety into Rules: How Desirable or Avoidable is Proceduralization?

Bieder, Corrine; Bourrier, Mathilde (editors). Farnham, Surrey, England and Burlington, Vermont, U.S: Ashgate, 2013. 300 pp. Figures, tables, references, index.

Trapping Safety into Rules — there is a title as provocative as you are likely to see this year in books aimed at aviation safety professionals.

No one needs a definition of rules. Bieder and Bourrier describe “proceduralization” as “firstly, the aim of defining precise and quantified safety objectives, and secondly, the aim of defining a process, describing and prescribing at the same time how to achieve such objectives.” Unfortunately, “these two aspects are usually not defined by the same entity. Some inconsistencies may even exist between the two types of procedures.”

Questioning the role of rules and proceduralization goes to the heart of commercial aviation, one of the most heavily rule-bound industries. Almost every aspect of the industry is covered by regulations (a subset of rules), standard operating procedures, standards and best practices. Accident investigation reports usually conclude with recommendations for new regulations and procedures.

The remarkable safety record of the industry is due in large part to effective procedures. They are the result of lessons learned from accidents and incidents, as well as research and predictive analysis.

More………….

Airline Safety System Comes to Helicopter Sector

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Reported May 2 2013, the FAA is expanding the safety data collection capabilities of The Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) system with the move to open the program to Helicopter operators.  With the proven success of ASIAS in reducing accident rates in commercial air space operations, we believe that the ASIAS capabilities will help helicopter operators achieve measurable safety improvements.

Source:  Aviation International News » May 2013

by  Mark Huber

May 2, 2013, 5:35 AM

The FAA is planning to expand a new safety data collection and analysis system beyond scheduled air carriers to all elements of the aviation community, including helicopters. The move comes as the helicopter industry formally acknowledged earlier this year that, while it has made considerable progress, it will likely fall short of the International Helicopter Safety Team’s (IHST) goal of reducing the helicopter accident rate by 80 percent by 2016. Industry efforts to date have resulted in a 30-percent reduction since 2005.

The Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing (ASIAS) system collects information from a wide variety of sources, including flight data recorders. Initially, when the program began in 2007, thirteen airlines and the FAA joined the initiative. The FAA’s role is non-punitive. Today, membership has grown to 44 airlines representing 96 percent of commercial airspace operations and 131 safety data sources, according to the FAA. The Mitre Corp. analyzes and safeguards proprietary airline data; integrates it with Mitre’s own aviation safety databases covering weather, radar tracks, airspace and traffic and other public data; conducts studies; and builds analysis capabilities. Airline data is shared over Mitre secure servers and includes pilot safety reports and FDR data. Mitre began delivering safety studies generated by the program to the FAA and stakeholders in 2008. The studies had an immediate benefit, including the redesign of airspace in select regions to thwart false Taws alerts. ASIAS also establishes safety measurement benchmarks that allow individual operators to see where they stack up against the industry as a whole.

The data trove collected to date is huge. It includes 125,000 aviation safety action program reports, 10 million flight operations quality assurance (FOQA) reports, and 50,000 air traffic safety action program reports. Although the system is relatively new, to date, seven of the 76 safety enhancements proposed by the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (Cast) have been derived from ASIAS data. ASIAS also tracks the effectiveness of those enhancements as well as 51 distinct metrics. Twice annually, 500 airline aviation safety professionals share safety information at closed-door “Infoshare” meetings. Issues discussed are linked to ASIAS for early detection and analysis.

Helicopter Applications

ASIAS is scalable to the helicopter industry, particularly in areas where there is a high concentration of operations such as the Gulf of Mexico, according to several sources familiar with the program. Preliminary discussions have already begun with the International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST), said Stan Rose, director of safety for the Helicopter Association International (HAI). Morphing ASIAS for helicopters would involve different metrics and data, but similar analysis tools could be used. “The reason the Gulf is attractive is that it is a big enough [data set] and accounts for approximately 25 percent of the helicopter flight hours in the U.S.,” Rose said.

To a certain degree, major operators in the Gulf are already sharing safety data and other information through the HeliShare program and its quarterly meetings, said Stuart Lau, chairman of the IHST’s helicopter flight data monitoring committee. Lau said that current plans are to integrate HeliShare members and their data fully into ASIAS by the third quarter and add major helicopter EMS providers into the group. “The FAA has funded the rotorcraft segment to be included in ASIAS, and we are currently working with operators on memoranda of understanding and other logistical details.” Lau said Gulf operators are a natural starting point because they have “the most mature flight data monitoring programs. It’s really the beginning stages of ASIAS for us and we are going to continue the quarterly HeliShare meetings. So far it has been successful and at every meeting more events are shared operator to operator. Once we get ASIAS involved we will have the opportunity for directed studies.”

NTSB member Robert Sumwalt told AIN he thinks the application of ASIAS to the helicopter industry will add to safety management initiatives and be a good way to prevent data siloing. “If you are just stove piping and not sharing information” accidents can result. “You need to collect, analyze and disseminate the information,” Sumwalt said, adding that “protocols need to be put in place to make sure that information is not being misused. The ASIAS protocols have been vetted. The air carrier industry has been doing this for a number of years. The ASIAS executive board decides the cases it wants to study and queries its members to check their databases. Nobody at the FAA or at Mitre can tap into member databases. It’s been really successful.”

“This is one of the next steps” the helicopter industry must make to further reduce its accident rate, Sumwalt said. “Until it does it is not going to make any appreciable improvement on the accident record until it is willing and able to go to this next step. The IHST effort has been fairly successful, but if they want to continue the uphill climb, they have to go to the next level, which is something like [ASIAS].”

Sumwalt said that for the helicopter industry to hit a plateau in the accident reduction rate is not unusual, based on the airlines’ experience with safety goals set by Cast, widely acknowledged as the model for the IHST, in the 1990s. “Even that model had to move the goal post a couple of times, but they still did a heck of a lot and they still did make a difference. Good safety is good business. ASIAS is a good model to share information in a non-threatening way.

Obama taps Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx as Transportation Secretary

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President Barack Obama has tapped Charlotte, North Carolina Mayor Anthony Foxx as the next Transportation Secretary.

Should the Senate approve of the nomination, Foxx will replace Ray LaHood, who decided to step down from his position near the end of January.

LaHood decided to stay on until a suitable successor was found and in the time since then has been very vocal about the state of decline American infrastructure has found itself in.

LaHood also took to his FastLane blog to discuss Foxx’s nomination calling him “the right man for the job.” LaHood pointed out pieces of Foxx’s experience that deal with specific infrastructure issues the country is currently facing, citing the Charlotte Streetcar Project, improvements made to the Charlotte Douglas International Airport, the expanded LYNX light rail system, freight and passenger rail upgrades and redesigned intersections on Interstate 85.

In response to his nomination Foxx said reaching across the aisle will be a priority under his oversight. “We must work together across party lines to enhance this nation’s infrastructure,” he said