Question for Fellow Aviation Nerds Out in CP Land

[Maritime Q-Scout]

I stumbled upon the controversy over Safety Management Systems (SMS) implementation in Canada, and I was wondering what any CPers knew or thought about the process.

Not working in the airline industry I don't really have a great perspective on what its effects are, or how it's supposed to "improve" things.

I'm kind of surprised I'm only hearing about this now, is this a good thing or not?

[Bigtime]

I still get copies of the Aviation Safety Letter from Transport Canada, over the last couple of years the articles on SMS have been in pretty much every edition. Of course TC trumpets it as this great new innovation, but what I hear (with my limited connections to flying now) is that it is really just a cost cutting measure at TC that puts most of the pressure on the operators to run safe operations, and could even give some of the shadier ones ways of covering up unsafe practices.

[sa226]

We have an SMS system where I work, and for the most part it is an ok idea in principle but there are some serious flaws in its basis.

The buzz words that accompany SMS is "culture" and "non-punitive" because the backbone of the system is reports submitted by employees.

They always emphasize a "non-punitive" reporting system which basically means you can't get in trouble for telling us about another employee that did something bad or yourself for that matter (that is very simplistic but for the most part accurate)

Instead the report gets tracked and processed through the "system" to come up with a plan to mitigate it.

"Culture" just refers to essentially a whole philosophy change among the workers to understand what the goal of the SMS program is, and I guess to make sure we know we are all on the same team.

The problem with all of this no matter how many fancy buzz words they come up with is that it relies on employees with a wide array of personalities, senses of pride and to an extent dishonesty. There have been instances where one employee reported another for whatever reason and even though it is supposed to be anonymous and non-punitive, people aren't stupid, they can figure things out and a sense of resentment arose.

I am just as guilty of it as the next person. We are told that you report anything and everything out of the ordinary, not just safety issues. The way I was raised and the type of person I am, I prefer to deal with people face to face, and I like to handle other issues on my own. I don't like whining and complaining about every little thing. That goes back to whole "culture" bit.

I am neither pro nor anti SMS. I see some serious flaws in the system, but my company handles it very well, I dare say the way it was meant to be handled.

Other companies however may not have the same philosophy, but I cant speak for other companies. Not on a internet message board anyway.

I am sure some super duper pro SMS person could and would tear this post to bits, but therein lies one of the issues I am an employee at a company that has an SMS program.

[sa226]

This may be a completely naive question but why the interest in it at all?

I don't really consider it a hot topic, it was a few years back with its implementation at the different levels (703, 704, 705)

I would compare it to me asking why Subway stopped tesselating the cheese (terrible example but that's all I could think of right now)