I was surprised this week by a New York Times article: FAA Orders Airlines to Devise Plans to Identify Risks.
What’s the driver for these risk assessments? The International Civil Aviation Association (ICAO) is part of the United Nations. ICAO rules impact 191 countries. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the US signatory to ICAO. As such, they are now mandating airlines to develop risk based plans, which are also called Safety Management Systems.
WHAT IS SMS?
The FAA defines it as:
“SMS is the formal, top-down business approach to managing safety risk, which includes a systemic approach to managing safety, including the necessary organizational structures, accountabilities, policies and procedures. (Order VS 8000.367)”
The SMS rules are harmonized and similar throughout the world. Again, the purpose if to develop consistency among the 191 countries.
HOW IS SMS DIFFERENT FROM QMS?
SMS is global and statutory. SMS objective is aviation focused. ISO 9001 QMS objective is customer satisfaction. In other words, SMS is required AND QMS is not required. And, if an entity has QMS then the QMS should not conflict with the SMS.
This brings up a number of questions for suppliers that have a QMS or AS systems risk based systems, but will have to harmonize with a SMS. The FAA has a great page explaining the similarities and differences.
An interesting point is brought up:
“There seems to be an underlying misunderstanding between a quality management system and a safety management system. You can have a quality product or service, as defined by the ISO standards, and still not have a safe product or service.”
“Part 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. Trade association presidents, and regulators state that SMS is a businesslike approach to managing safety; and this is correct. However, many people falsely assume this to mean that processes designed to produce a quality product, (repeatedly doing the same thing, without variation) equates to the same thing as repeatedly producing a safe product.”1
WHAT’S THE SCOPE OF THE SMS?
The SMS is statutory impacting 191 countries. SMS also touches most or all of aerospace as the below figure from the FAA indicates:
A STORY!
We were conducting risk training and consulting with FAA several years ago. They had conducted Safety Management System training in risk. They were moving it out into the aerospace sectors.
So, I brought up SMS with AS consultants and auditors. Less than a handfull knew what it was. OK. Now, it’s mandated.
Now, AS 9100 and ISO 9001:2015 (QMS) has Risk Based Thinking. How will QMS harmonize with SMS?
Notes:
Steven C. McNeely, Manager, Safety Management Systems, Jet Solutions, L.L.C, published by “Flight Safety Information February 12, 2010 No.034”, Lessons Learned from Toyota – 2010-QMS vs SMS
Bio:
Greg Hutchins PE and CERM (503.233.101 & GregH@QualityPlusEngineering.com) is the founder of:
CERMAcademy.com
800Compete.com
QualityPlusEngineering.com
WorkingIt.com
He is the evangelist behind Future of Quality: Risk®. He is currently working on the Future of Work and machine learning projects.
He is a frequent speaker and expert on Supply Chain Risk Management and cyber security. His current books available on all platform are shown below:
