Aviation Safety Management System Program - Research Paper Example

of the due: Aviation Safety Management System Program Aviation Safety Management Systems Program Concerning Egypt Air Flight 990 In aviation company there should be an aviation safety management system which is a top down approach to managing safety risk and involves a systematic approach in safety management. Safety management system brings up an evolutionary process in system safety maintenance. Safety management system is a structured process that obligates aviation organizations to manage safety with similar intensity of precedence that other business processes are handled (Stolzer, Halford and Goglia, 2008). When frequent safety maintenance is conducted within such organizations the probability of this organization achieving their expected goals is very high. Safety management systems programs have been developed nowadays and implemented in airlines, civil aviation authorities, manufactures, airports, units of air traffic control all over the world. The international organization of civil aviation has insisted on the implementation of safety management systems in the mentioned areas so as to curb the problem off accidents involving aircrafts and those that come as a result of incompetency as well (Rodriguez, Cusick and Wells, 2012). This should therefore be done in all airlines, aviation maintenance organizations and in all airports. Consequently, most airlines should implement the overall objective of achieving and maintaining acceptable standards of safety within the context of raising air traffic, wider competition commercially and a greater center on realization of cost. Hence, successful safety management entails staff at all stages in operations, design and manufacture of aircrafts, control of air traffic, airports, handling and maintenance of ground operations and others like private flights (Dekker, 2007). This therefore, calls for advancement of such better facts in all the aviation organizations so as to curb various problems and failures that might crop up during frequent operations of the airlines. Aviation safety management doctrine has moved from an outdated habitual reactive basis to a recent proactive, from the focus of an organization (Ludwig and Ayres, 2009). Aircraft accidents have become a rare case in today’s history; however, there is no chance for advancement. The safety management program deploys an improved system management assumption and practice to drive the occurrence level of vital safety events to an even lower level. It is essential for each and very individual involve in the safety management systems to deeply understand the meaning of the word safety since this is the key concept in this case. Safety can be defined as the state in which a risk to cause harm to persons or damage to any property is minimized to and maintained at or below, a tolerable standard through a continuous procedures of hazard identification and risk management(Stolzer, Halford and Goglia, 2008). In addition hazard is the condition or a situation that emerge to physical injury or damage while risk is the consequence of a hazard evaluated in terms of severity and the immediate likelihood of circumstances. Concerning the Egypt flight 990 accidents, it was realized that safety of the craft was at risk and thus led to such circumstances. Therefore, such accidents caused as a result of poor safety measures can result into many accidents from the aircrafts which is also putting a sounding warning to those who are flying (Stolzer, Halford and Goglia, 2008). To curb these problems aviation organizations in Egypt need to develop effective and efficient safety management systems. It should also be noted that a good safety management system is that which is systematic and comprehensive in its process so as to encourage a proactive management of safety risks that will in the long run incorporate the management of operations and technical systems financial and personnel control. In addition, the core operation concept in this case is the systems aspect of safety management systems. A safety management system that should be incorporated and reinforced in the Egypt airline should be one that encompasses the following processes: Safety Management System .Identification of hazard .Audits .Safety reviews .change management .technical management system Such a system is thought to be a collection of various processes that conform and act together to change inputs into a more desired output. A system comprises of a clear objective and procedures to attain the specific objective (Rodriguez, Cusick and Wells, 2012). A means of measuring the degree to which the objective has been attained is also essential to evaluate the performance of a system thus a Safety management system consist of all aspects of operation. System management for managing safety mostly uses confirmed procedures and techniques to determine and evaluate various hazards and the various risks associated that are also inherent to the operation. Consequently, the hazards are eventually eliminated if possible. If that is not the case the risks are managed to a reasonable level by reducing their chances of occurrence should that happen. The systems’ effectiveness can be analyzed by tracking down the risk mitigation efforts (Ludwig and Ayres, 2009). In line with these efforts, new hazards that emerge or the ones that are always overlooked are pin pointed for serious attention. All these efforts are undertaken within a structure full of safety targets, procedures, policies and personnel accountabilities. Components of an aviation safety management system include things such as safety policy, assurance, risk management and promotion. These safety policy establishes management commitment to continually advance safety, elaborates the procedures, processes and the structure of the organization that aims at meeting safety goals within the Egypt air company (Hoppe, 2011). The airline company should work adequately and transparently along the policies regarding safety management systems program so as to avoid issues such accident causes or any unwanted safety risk in the organization that might lead unwanted expenditure such as repair of a cargo damage, vehicle damage, loss of revenue, medical expenses, administrative expenses. Safety assurance aids in evaluating continued effectiveness risk control strategies to support the determination of new hazards. Safety promotion involves communication, training, and other actions aimed at creating a optimistic safety environment within all levels of the work force. This should be broadly practiced by the Egypt air company since, their environment is not well managed on safety issues related to such as discussed above (Ludwig and Ayres, 2009). Finally, safety risk management identifies the need for adequacy of revised risk control based on the evaluation of acceptable risk. The Egypt air company should employ an aviation program in their organization that majorly helps to attain credibility and competency in safety management issues. Safety in this case should range from the system put in place for the management of the aircraft while on the ground and in air. Safety should also target on the personnel both the employees and the passengers who always board the plane (Rodriguez, Cusick and Wells, 2012). Without maintaining proper safety management measures it would subject the airline company into a lot of risk especially in the operations section. Egypt Air Company should adopt a proper Safety management program because it indeed adds a lot of value to the company’s bottom line especially in terms of its operations and management of its daily activities and those involving the aircraft. In addition, aviation organizations such as this exist to provide a service, achieve production output and produce return on investment to enable growth and continuous operations (Hoppe, 2011). Therefore, proper implementation of such measures would ensure safety in a broader perspective. The measures would aid the organization form getting great losses from accidents and at same time lessen the number of expenses that might be incurred incase an accident occurs. This accident might lead to indirect costs such a government agency expenses, accident reporting, equipment down time and increase public relation costs. Basically, no aviation organization has ever been established to create safety only thus indeed safety truly is not the first factor for these organizations. Efficient and effective safety management is just but one of the numerous organization procedures that enable a particular aviation firm to deliver its services better and generate good profits in the long run. Introduction of an effective safety management program would ensure good operational practice (Seamster and Kanki, 2002). This is due to the fact that the cost of even one serious aviation safety event can cause the aviation company to stagger and that is why ensuring a better safety management program would ensure that all operation activities are at per as far as safety measures are concerned in the airline company. Nevertheless, a high profile accident has the capability to miserably stop the existence of an aviation company for example, the Egypt Air Company. But on the other proper management of the allocated resources for a safety management system would aid in ensuring the survival of the organization and its continued operations. A major challenge facing this aviation organization is the organizational factors that introduce various hazards. This is due to fact that such organizations may not have enough resources to employ a full time safety manger. Safety duties are normally delegated as a collateral function to a middle level manager for example; Chief pilot in the Egypt air company or manager of standards within the same company (Hoppe, 2011). In addition, safety management program can unintentionally become a secondary priority, basically when considering the substantial effort needed. A small aviation organization may therefore develop a weak safety culture thus, making it prone to risks such as aircraft accidents as seen in Egypt air flight 990. Therefore, in such circumstances the firm should have genuine commitment beginning from the upper level management to allocate both financial and personnel resources to the vital functions of safety management (Seamster and Kanki, 2002). Eventually, Egypt Airline Company should deploy a robust and an extensive safety management program that can serve as a force multiplier for such situations by enhancing positive and measurable results to be produced due to the inherent merits of Safety Management Systems. Requirements of a Safety Management System Program that should be incorporated by Egypt Airline Company A safety management program needs that the interrelated areas of necessities and solutions are taken care of. Prosperous Safety Management System program operation depends on the five main concepts that is, safe event reporting and feedback, training and education, program ownership, upper level management and an equal culture (Dekker, 2007). In an aviation organization the upper level organization must associate and also support the Safety Management System Program. The organization as a whole must see the management level not just giving an appearance but also getting involved in the actual thing thus this is an extreme challenge to many of these aviation organizations. A non-punitive culture which should be equal towards personnel is another crucial factor in that a single instance of punishment in inappropriate manner can disseminate the whole initiative (Dekker, 2007). Therefore, in this case the aviation organization should be able to define the limits of what acceptable behavior is for example basic human factor related events like slips, mistakes and errors as opposed to willful backsliding from the right policies and procedures like intentional disregards, violations and the so called ‘work arounds’. This airline should also develop the culture of safety event reporting which an important concept and foundation of safety management systems program (Rodriguez, Cusick and Wells, 2012). This actually takes when safety personnel are not updated on the event occurrences thus no investigations would be carried out. Moreover, all the personnel from senior levels to new staff should receive understandable and documented training on Safety Management Systems program. This kind of training should be directed to personnel receiving it and the organization’s manager who is accountable does not require being one of the experts in safety management systems. Personnel such as those on the sharp edge of the spear for examples ramp workers, maintenance technicians, flight crews and others should get training mainly associated with operations (Rodriguez, Cusick and Wells, 2012). This should take place even if the firm or the aviation company does not have a specialized safety manager thus someone should be tasked with the management and ownership of the program. In spite of the complexity status of the safety management system, for the effectiveness of the program, documentation is very important. This is because; it contributes majorly in sustaining an effective safety management system program. These vital activities cannot be shared or formed as a volunteer or on part time basis (Ludwig and Ayres, 2009). Through a keen understanding of the safety management system, stable solutions for Egypt Airline Company can eventually be assessed. The moment the choice to put into practice a safety running structure has been initiated then a structured support can be incorporated. It is through this structured support that an aviation company can achieve competent results as far safety management systems program is concerned. Consequently, to ascertain that safety management system is important, many organizations have developed the safety management system software while some are even readily accessible at no cost(Hoppe, 2011).. Some of the examples of safety management system software packages include: SMS pro form northwest data solutions, AIRS form international safety systems, Quality SMS from Omni Air Group, AVSIS form air charter safety foundation, AQD from super structure group and finally, Favo FRACAS from advanced logistics development. Conversely, any safety management system software program majorly assists in the operation of the program. This is seen in functions such as tracking data, managing reports, analysis, reporting events and also when analyzing trends. These are easily performed with the available software programs (Ludwig and Ayres, 2009). The smaller the firms, the more programs like these will assist. In addition, another safety management system alternative is the formulation of an agreement which is commercial with a third party vendor. In this case the vendor can help the client at hand with the implementation, development and management of the safety management program. This concept is referred to as virtual safety program and it has been tremendously successfully used by airlines, maintenance providers and various manufactures (Seamster and Kanki, 2002). Safety experts who outsource can provide the available clients with competent and professional safety maintenance especially when the company is small in size and that it has limited personnel. The provider of safety management is constantly prepared to help the client in taking care of crisis management operations when an accident occurs. In this case, the vendor would be of great importance especially when there is a liaison with the government agencies, media and manufactures. When an outside vendor who is competent is used in the development of an emergency procedures guidelines will eventually lessen the financial impact of a vital safety happening. Thus an outside vendor can be of great importance especially when there are frequent happenings of incidents and near misses (Hoppe, 2011). The schedule developed by the vendor would include an event reporting program, enabling the firm to learn safety loopholes in their operations. For aviation organization to be aware of a single minute problem area could potentially save the rest from any failure or from a large financial burden in case such an event takes place. Other organizations can also give great assistance with the development of a safety management system program. This can majorly come from an appropriate civil aviation authority where by there would be a regulatory guidance and supporting reference material hence assisting with getting a program up and running it. Summarily, Egypt Airline Company should come up or adapt modern techniques of managing safety aviation systems so as to avoid accidents that emerge for operations of the aircraft that leads to abundant loss lives. The safety management system manager of the company should put into place various personnel that are frequently trained and are well equipped with adequate knowledge regarding the operations of the aircraft especially when it flying forms one destination to the other (Rodriguez, Cusick and Wells, 2012). The safety procedures should also be incorporated when the aircraft is on the ground that is, ground operations. Operations done at the cockpit are sensitive since they determine the movement of the aircraft and in this situation, the conditions available should be ones that would provide an ample environment for the operations of the engine so as to obtain a safe flight. The company should practice a lot of safety control especially on its operation both on the ground and in the air. In addition, safety risk management should also be implemented at a higher notch to aid in limiting chances of risk occurrence which would result into unwanted losses to the airline company. References Stolzer, A. J., Halford, C. D. and Goglia, J. J. (2008): Safety management systems in aviation. Burlington VT: Ashgate Dekker, S. (2007): Just culture: balancing safety and accountability. Aldershot, England: Ashgate. Hoppe, E. (2011): Ethical issues in aviation. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate. Ludwig, D. A., & Ayres, M. (2009): Safety management systems for airports. Washington, D.C.: Transportation Research Board. Rodriguez, C. C., Cusick, S. K., & Wells, A. T. (2012): Commercial aviation safety (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Professional. Seamster, T. L., & Kanki, B. G. (2002): Aviation information management: from documents to data. Aldershot, Hampshire, Eng.: Ashgate. Read More