Our Story

Welcome

Welcome to our Safety Management System that brings aviation SMS into the digital world and provides a unique reference library for safety management guidance.

Simplify safety

Our goal is simple. Provide guidance material that is simple to understand and as a result makes safety accessible to everyone who works in our industry. Safety isn’t delivered by safety professionals. It is delivered through one of the most significant global collaborative efforts you can imagine. To continue to deliver excellent safety performance we will require everyone to engage in open conversation about safety in the context of the tasks they perform. To do this we must create a psychologically safe environment that empowers staff to contribute to the management of safety.

Digital SMS

Sharing information is easy. Understanding that information and then implementing the ideas is difficult. To make it easier for users we are sharing the information in the format of Safety Management System Manual. We have created an experience on our site that replicates the feel you have when accessing an internal organisation website. Of course we do this with a twist. With the help of Graphical Data we have taken advantage of the benefits of sharing information digitally which allows us present the information in new, exciting and accessible ways.

SMS Framework

We have specifically chosen to use a bespoke SMS Framework based on the recognised continuous improvement Plan-Do-Check-Act ‘Deming’ cycle. This helps us achieve our goal of a simple language. Regulatory safety frameworks are clunky and not designed with the lay person in mind. And nor do they have the ability to evolve along with best practice. We make a stand that safety management is not about regulatory compliance. Safety is our priority. Safety is about managing the risk or uncertainty that we have in the aviation industry in terms of the safe delivery of passengers and our air and ground crews. When we talk about safety this is what we mean.

Systems Thinking SMS

The focus on people can be seen in all areas of this digital SMS. We have achieved this by considering and applying (to the best of our ability) systems thinking principles as the foundation of every element of our SMS. Understanding people and technology in the context of a single joint system is a key pillar to successful safety management. We recommend that you read our Safety Policy, Just Culture Policy and Just Culture Handbook to learn more about the mindset we are promoting and how we envisage the future.

Exploring concepts

To be truthful, our project is also an experiment. We seek to progress many conversations on safety management concepts, the presentation of safety guidance and how we engage with people. These are some of the topics we hope to explore and we welcome your input:

• The power of a systems thinking approach to safety management and what that can enable from a just culture perspective (including whether we can remove from our lexicon the phrase ’cause’ or ‘human error’).
• The potential in aligning safety management approaches across all aviation domains and most importantly gain agreement on what are the hazards in aviation that we should be looking at in a collective manner.
• The value of digitalising not only safety management processes but all your business processes in the progress towards integrated management systems.
• The perceived gap between SMS implementation in complex organisations versus non-complex organisations.

Change the world

We hope that this platform is an opportunity for the aviation community to come together to share their experience. Today our site reflects the safety management experience of countless individuals across many industries over the last 20 years and beyond. We already have some excellent contributors. If you are an individual, no matter what industry, who enjoys engaging in “change the world” conversations and you want to progress the industries collective knowledge in safety management then we would welcome your ideas and support. Please get in touch. 

Sharing good news

Finally, it is our sincere hope that the guidance that we are sharing can make a difference to how our industry improves safety. We would love to hear your good news stories so please share with us what successes you have had by using the guidance we have shared with you.

We wish you the best.

Aviation Safety Guy

huw @ 3 mile .co. uk

User Guide

To help users of Aviation SMS get the most out of the content we have created a short User Guide. If you are interested in how to use Aviation SMS to support SMS Implementation in your own organisation then we have also provided some suggestions on the key steps to take.

• SMS-User-Guide

Our Contributors