Aviation Safety Management Systems (SMS): aviation safety audit

Showing posts with label aviation safety audit. Show all posts

Monday, May 13, 2013

Using Aviation Safety Audit Management Software

Safety Audit Management Software in SMS Pro

Aviation safety audits or investigations are typically stressful and time consuming. Preparing yourself and your airline or airport is the best way to make the process go smoothly. This saves time and money for all parties concerned. SMS Pro has several very inexpensive safety audit management software tools available for airlines, airports, flight schools, FBOs, AMOs (MROs) and our existing corporate charter operators. Many free aviation safety auditing downloads can be found on http://www.aviation-sms.com.

Aviation Safety Audit Software Tools

Using Aviation Safety Audit Management Software

Understanding the safety auditing tools is important for safety and quality managers to effectively prepare for safety audits, whether they are internal safety audits performed by your airline or airport, or external audits performed by aviation regulatory authorities or clients. Before we get too far into managing internal and external audits, let's review the available aviation safety auditing software modules available in SMS Pro.

1) Inspection Form Creator

Internal safety audits always begin with safety audit checklists. Checklists ensure that safety auditors review all the processes or procedures according to the standards of the specified audit. Aviation safety audits ensure airlines and airports are performing to prescribed standards. These standards are best laid out in checklists against which safety auditors answer with "yes/no," "true/false," etc.

Inspection Form Creator allows airlines and airports to very easily create aviation safety audit forms, whether they are airfield ground lighting, runway inspections, ground handling procedures, contractor/supplier evaluations, etc. As you can see, Inspection Form Creator is used for audits, inspections and evaluations.

In short, internal safety audits needs safety audit checklists and these checklists are created in the Inspection Form Creator.

2) Aviation Safety Audit Scheduler

Using Aviation Safety Audit Management Software at airlines and airports

Aviation Safety Audit Scheduler provides a calendar view of all aviation safety audits. SMS Pro can have more than one Safety Audit Scheduler per portal. For example, you may not want aviation maintenance departments to be overwhelmed with flight operations' safety audits. In this case, contact SMS Pro support and ask for another page to be created in your SMS Pro safety portal. If you have already taken the Advanced SMS Pro Administrator Training, you can do this yourself.

As you can easily imagine, the Aviation Safety Audit Scheduler allows managers to schedule internal and external safety audits. While scheduling the aviation safety audit, managers setup:

Audit Inspection Form(s) to be used;
Responsible Manager;
Audit Team;
Schedule Reminders to Auditing Team;
Recurring Audits.

To perform an aviation safety audit, members of the audit team can either start from the safety audit scheduling calendar or directly from the Safety Audit Manager.

3) Safety Audit Manager

aviation safety audit software for airlines and airiports

The third aviation safety auditing software module in SMS Pro is the Audit Manager. Audit Manager is where:

Audit Team answers selected safety audit checklists;
Audit Team adds attachments (photos, support documentation);
Responsible Manager accepts the completed aviation safety audit;
Final PDF reports are generated for printing or review.

When the auditing team discovers safety audit finding or concerns, reported issues are sent to SMS Pro's risk management software module, Issue Manager. Let's see how this works next.

4) Issue Manager - Aviation Safety Audit Managing Software

During the aviation safety audit, finding or concerns may be identified. Corrective actions must be managed to ensure identified shortcomings are addressed to ensure conformity to standards. Finally, a report must be made to audit stakeholders detailing the plan to correct the findings and concerns. SMS Pro's Issue Manager does this very nicely. Corrective Action Plans are generated automatically and you can send them to interested parties.

To learn more about SMS Pro's suite of aviation audit management software modules, visit here.

More Information About Aviation Safety Audit Management Software

Failing Your Aviation Safety Audit - Next Steps?
Internal Auditors' Reporting Software
Audit Inspection Form Creator
Safety Audit Checklists
Audit Management Systems Integrated into Safety Management Systems
Policy & Audit Elements of Effective Risk Management Programs

How to best help your
Aviation Safety Management System

Become an SMS PRO

About NWDS - founded in 2003 by six software engineers, NorthWest Data Solutions (NWDS) provides custom computer programming and systems design services. NWDS creates many types of software, including e-commerce, financial, defense, engineering, logistics, aviation and more. In 2007, NWDS developed SMS Pro™ a web based SMS application that supports an organization's overall SMS through safety reporting, safety documentation, safety risk management and safety assurance. SMS Pro™ is currently used by aviation organizations in the U.S., Canada, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East to help manage their SMS programs. NWDS continues to support SMS Pro™ and add new functionality. NWDS offers custom contract programming services in the U.S. and Canada and is managed by Chris Howell, one of the founders. Their headquarters is in Anchorage, Alaska. For information on NWDS visit their website at www.nwds-ak.com and www.asms-pro.com to learn more about SMS Pro™.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Safety Audit Compels Risk Management Workflow Change Toward Issue Responsibility

Aviation Safety Officer Initial Responsibility Toward Reported Accidents/Incidents

When airline or airport employees report accidents and incidents, these reported issues move through a process that may look as follows:

Safety audit find regarding aviation safety officer responsibility

Aviation hazard/accident is reported;
Safety manager is notified;
Safety manager assesses risk;
Safety manager classifies issue;
Safety manager assigns issue to responsible department head;
Department head manages corrective/preventive actions (CPAs);
Investigation team conducts investigation (if required);
Safety manager closes issue when all items completed (CPAs and investigation);
Safety manager monitors/tracks issue for recurrence;
Safety team reviews issue on future schedule to validate effectiveness of CPAs.

Aviation Risk Management Responsibility Discovered in Aviation Safety Audit

Airline airport Safety audit find regarding aviation safety officer responsibility

Every aviation risk management system follows a similar workflow as outlined above. It is the responsibility of every airline/airport employee to report identified hazards and incidents. After the issue has been reported, it then becomes the safety manager's responsibility to ensure the issue is properly managed throughout the lifetime of this issue. Let's not forget that the accountable executive is ultimately responsible, but this responsibility has been delegated to the safety manager.

In many cases, reported issues don't require large teams to mitigate the risk or apply the corrective/preventive actions. Often the safety manager will simply remedy the situation, close the reported issue, and monitor the effectiveness of the applied CPAs. In effect, the safety manager becomes the "responsible manager" for these easily managed issues.

Past SMS Pro Shortcoming Regarding Reported Issue Responsibility

For more than five years, SMS Pro assumed that safety managers would assign a department head to all reported issues. The step is part of the flexible workflow that is optional. In early 2013, Transport Canada aviation safety auditors discovered that sometimes a safety manager would apply the corrective preventive action himself and never formally assign the issue to a department head. In short, the reported hazard or event was unassigned. This was a valid finding. Every reported issue must have an owner. Somebody must be responsible for managing this issue, however trivial it may appear.

When this finding appeared, SMS Pro support staff raised their eyebrows. In an effort to provide a flexible workflow, we overlooked a fundamental tenet in aviation risk management. Every issue must have a responsible manager...

Solution to Aviation Safety Audit's Reported Issue Responsibility

To prevent future aviation safety auditors to apply this finding to other airlines and airports using SMS Pro, the workflow of SMS Pro has been slightly modified.

Since February 2013, issues are automatically assigned to the "default" safety manager for the division for which the issue belongs to. It is important for safety managers to understand the reasoning behind this automatic assignment as outlined above. This information was announced in an email in February 2013, but seems to have been overlooked. Hence this blog post explaining the logic behind the automated assignment of the safety manager as the responsible manager to each reported issue.