There are many excellent safety management systems (SMS) manuals and training programs in the aviation marketplace these days, including ours.
Even more prevalent are the number of small to medium airports, airlines, ground service providers, maintenance operators (MRO) and fixed base operators (FBO), who do not have an effective SMS program or are struggling to use their programs effectively.
Why does this disconnect exist? Firstly financial cutbacks, by many levels of governments, in the areas of compliance and enforcement, being imposed on the Safety Regulators in most jurisdictions, have forced the Regulators to double or even quadruple the time between audits. Coupled with management and staff turnover at small to medium (SME’s) enterprises as they are continuously used as training stepping stones for large companies. This same issue is a substantial contributor to the pilot shortage. The resulting high turnover is a major cause of fatigue and lack of focus leading to potentially dangerous situations going unactioned.
All of the foregoing can be mitigated by Companies investing in more effective training. The focus until now has been on process and strategy when it comes to SMS. Safety is looked at and treated as a cost centre and Companies are hesitant to increase cost in this area and in some cases further exacerbate the situation by not paying a living wage.
Process and strategy are important and without them accidents and cost in lives and dollars would escalate. But process and strategy address outcomes even when they are very well planned and proactive.
Establishing a Total Safety Culture throughout your organisation conversely addresses root causes with predictive analysis and focused positive behaviour to eliminate accident causes and dangerous situations.
Creating a Safety Culture throughout your organisation is a big investment. The key is it is an investment not an expense. Companies who have made this investment have excellent on time performance that drives increased revenue and lower costs – without exception!
If you wish to find out how you can increase profitability, lower costs and grow revenue contact us at [email protected].