A Safety Management System (SMS) is a systematic approach to managing safety, including the necessary organisational structures, accountabilities, policies and procedures. As per International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) requirements, service providers (e.g. airlines, maintenance organisations) are responsible for establishing an SMS, which is accepted and overseen by their Civil Aviation Authority.

In New Zealand, the safety management requirements are contained in Civil Aviation Rule Part 100 – Safety Management and the related organisational certification rule parts. The SMS rules require most commercial aviation organisations to implement a risk management system in the form of a SMS. This approach maintains many of the same aspects of the QMS approach, but enhances it by requiring aviation organisations to actively identify and manage the safety risks of their operation with agreed safety performance targets.

Under the requirements, the service provider must implement an SMS accepted by New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority (NZCAA) that, as a minimum:

1. Identifies safety hazards

2. Ensures that remedial action necessary to maintain an acceptable level of safety is implemented

3. Provides for continuous monitoring and regular assessment of the safety level achieved

4. Aims to make continuous improvement to the overall level of safety

SMS implementation was divided by NZCAA into two groups to provide organisations with sufficient time to develop and implement an SMS appropriate to the size of the organisation, the nature and complexity of the activities undertaken, and the hazards and associated risks inherent in their activities. The first group requiring implementation over a 2-year period comprises Part 121 and Part 125 air operators, and the associated supporting organisations e.g. maintenance, international aerodromes and Air Traffic Service providers. The second group comprises the remainder of the certificated organisations that are required to have a SMS with implementation over a five-year period.

Oceania Aviation as a group one service provider, submitted its SMS implementation plan including a gap analysis, timeline, resource requirements and assigned responsibilities in July 2016.

It is important to integrate management systems where possible, and the introduction of an SMS offers this opportunity. The benefits of integrating systems include a reduction in the duplication of resources, a significant improvement in the collation and analysis of safety-related data, a reduction in potentially conflicting objectives, and recognition of safety as the objective of all systems. Therefore, Oceania Aviation adopted an integrated management system for managing workplace health & safety, aviation safety and quality. Our safety and quality management system is now called “Health, Safety and Quality(HSQ) System”.

After a year of planning, designing and implementing of our HSQ requirements, we are now ready for the SMS certification process. NZCAA has set our audit dates in August and September 2017 and by the end of September, we are confident that our safety management system will be certified and approved by the authority.

As our SMS continues to evolve and become more regulated, it will take on a dominant role in a company’s overall strategy. The Oceania Aviation senior management team will need to direct their focus on how QMS and SMS can complement each other in the implementation and sustainment of their management systems. Those managers have the responsibility to establish the balance of production goals (delivery of services) versus protection goals (safety). If this integration does not result in meeting customer requirements, the organisation will not survive the competitive pressures of today’s aviation environment. Measuring operational activity occurs both on the corporate level as Oceania Aviation Health, Safety & Quality (HSQ) Department analyses data received from multiple sources, but perhaps even more importantly, each functional area is assessing its operational activities to identify opportunities for improvement. This culture and passion for continual improvement is an essential change for safety practitioners in the way they approach safety management. In other words, a “well-managed operation is a safe operation.”