Newsletters
March 2010
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During the recent Toyota recall "mess" the President of Toyota stated in an op-ed article (CNN on-line) that "we failed to connect the dots with accelerator problems in the United States and Europe" and "the company needed to improve sharing important quality and safety information across our global operations." One could argue that safety is an unspoken and unwritten quality expectation for the customers of Toyota and you cannot separate the two. You can have a quality product or service, as defined by the ISO standards, and still not have a safe product or service. Toyota's problem underscores this point. Some of the confusion stems from the adoption of some of the same types of tools and techniques used in quality management to manage the safety system. Many have stated that SMS is a businesslike approach to managing safety and this is a correct statement. However, many people falsely assume this to mean that processes designed to produce a quality product, (quality management system) equates to the same thing as producing a safe product. In Toyotas case, the accelerator parts were manufactured to a specification, albeit an incorrect one and the quality system would detect any variance of the process, and adjust the process to bring the production back in line with the specification. In effect, Toyota had a quality product. It was produced as designed, repeatedly without variation outside of established limits. However, Toyota did not have a safe product and as stated did not connect the dots between failures of the product during use, to failures of the production process. Because quality management systems measure types of manufacturing points, geared towards production costs and sales, some people believe these same types of process measures equate to a safety management system. It is how the tools and techniques are used, along with a focus on hazard identification and investigation that makes the quality management and safety management systems different. The quality systems do not investigate incidents or accidents for risk assessment. Quality systems audit process/production output for variance, and makes adjustments. SMS investigates events, looking for contributing factors from all influencing factors. For example: an altitude deviation will start with determining if a violation occurred, and if so, was it the result of an error, due to risk behavior, latent organizational conditions, or both. SMS looks at the Human interface aspects (commonly referred to as HFACS) and the organizational factors including the regulatory aspects, the operating environment, and the equipment to determine a root cause and contributing factors. One purpose of SMS is to improve safety performance, and therefore reduce the exposure to risk of having an accident. It is not focused on the safety record per se. Quality systems are focused on continuous improvement also, but through improving the production processes and quality. This is another source of confusion between the two management system concepts; improving a safety record, is not the same as improving safety performance. There are many aviation companies that have extremely good safety records, but are operating with risky behavior or inadequate organizational structures, and have just not had an accident yet. A good safety record, just like a good quality record, does not guarantee safety. Toyota has for decades been renowned for their outstanding quality, their reputation was built on their quality, yet Toyota is now faced with a failure to connect safety to their quality. One of the aspects pointed out with Toyota's problems, has been the management structure, and management involvement. Management's attention and oversight was focused on the business bottom line and those metrics were quality measures. Management was not focused on safety risk assessment or risk management. Safety risk assessment and safety risk management are just some of the components of an SMS, which requires management involvement. The aviation industry managers should take a lesson learned from Toyota, and ensure that what you do with the management system, i.e. doing the hazard analysis through the investigations of events is not overlooked. The FAA should also take a lesson from this, and ensure the necessary resources are available to connect the dots, between the operators reporting of failures, and the manufactures requirements to correct identified problems. There is a lot to be learned from the Toyota recall and how they got there. How can these lessons be applied to the aviation industry? Source for this article - Steven C. McNeely, Manager, Safety Management Systems, Jet Solutions, L.L.C. Undercover Boss – Safety Culture Assessment One of the key first steps in implementing a Safety Management System (SMS) is benchmarking the safety culture of the organization. Despite what management may think, no one really knows the organization's real corporate safety culture without conducting appropriate surveys and interviews of the company employees. In the new reality show "Undercover Boss," chief executives go undercover within their organization to learn about their employees' attitudes, work ethic and what they really think of the company they work for. Doing a show like Undercover Boss seems to be quite risky for fear of exposing some thorny issues for all to see on network television. However, in the case of Larry O'Donnell, President and COO of Waste Management, their company had been working very hard for the last several years on employee engagement – getting people engaged at every level of the company and opening up communication. Not surprisingly this is a cornerstone piece for a successful SMS implementation – open communication that allows employees at all levels to engage with management. As it turned out at Waste Management, both management and employees recognized the importance of open communication and the ability to talk about issues that confront the company. They demonstrated their ability to pull together as a team to solve issues by working together. This is a huge accomplishment for a large company like Waste Management. Transforming a company from a place where people just show up to collect a paycheck to a company where the employees feel appreciated, recognized and that they have a voice is a big step towards a safe work environment. When this happens, employees become engaged in helping to solve problems, which results in a very positive and powerful safety and corporate culture. This type of culture is productive, efficient, and has a high level of morale, which results in greater margins and safer operations. As it turns out "Undercover Boss" provides a great look into the culture of an organization. You can get that same safety and corporate cultural snapshot without having to risk being embarrassed on national TV. Contact JDA at info@jdasolutions.aero or 1-877-532-2376 for more information on JDA's unique and powerful Safety Cultural Assessment program. As one of JDA's recent clients stated, "this was the most beneficial program that we ever spent money on and we learned more from the safety culture assessment than we would have garnered in years." A Safety Management System Primer A Safety Management System is not a safety program - it is about decision making and business processes that position safety as a key part of a company's operating doctrine just like any other part of running a business. An SMS has policies, procedures and objectives that give it structure. It is about examining your operations and your environment and determining what hazards are present and deciding what you are going to do about them. Evaluation tools are used in SMS to ensure that the processes and policies are working. Think of SMS as the core management system for running an organization that puts safety on the same level as profit, margin, and reliability. Firms that establish SMS achieve benefits in productivity, operating margins, legal, labor relations and regulatory compliance. SMS can be summarized as:
SMS Resource Website At the SMS Partners website there are numerous resources including:
Click here to forward this e-mail to a friend! SMS Partners is a partnership between JDA Aviation Technology Solutions and Northwest Data Solutions. The combined expertise of these two organizations provides its customers with customized SMS solutions that will improve your safety record, keep you conpliant with regulatory requirements, and save you time and money. For more information, go to the SMS Partners' website.
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