How Safety Management Transforms Airport Operations

Although operational changes and the need to adapt to a new safety management system can sound like a drag, ultimately, an SMS completely transforms airport operations and benefits the organization as well as individual members of the organization. There’s a reason multiple countries throughout the globe have implemented an SMS — because it works. Aviation safety is a goal post that keeps moving forward, which requires you to have that same mindset to never settle on a specific safety protocol. There’s always room for improvement when it comes to ensuring aviation safety.

Higher Quality Data

When you implement an SMS, your organization is the one dictating the safety policy. You set up the structure required, and your senior management team is who agrees upon and disseminates the process they’re committed to adhering to. What the SMS does in return is allow for transparent knowledge sharing and accountability from top to bottom. With a centralized location for all data sharing, communication is made accessible to all members of your workforce, which is key when it comes to the coordination of emergency response planning.

As more data is input into the SMS via employee reports, control risk strategies, and hazard identification, the SMS puts your airport into a proactive and predictive mode of functioning. An SMS easily transforms the insights gleaned from real data into patterns you can easily recognize, reports that help you plan for better outcomes, and trends in a visually understandable format. These analyses empower you to make the best safety decisions throughout your organization. Instead of having trickles of information in one department and full reports in another, an SMS allows you to utilize critical feedback and put it to work without delay for a safer environment overall.

Training Improvements

It’s evident when an employee has not been properly trained to perform the responsibilities of his position. With an SMS, you can implement training improvements to empower your employees from the start and contribute to ensuring safety from their first day. Having a culture that prioritizes safety in an airport requires that you identify the airport’s values, instill the appropriate attitudes, and follow through with ensuring behavior that aligns throughout your organization. An SMS allows you to make use of a documented process that identifies all safety management training requirements for personnel.

While being able to disseminate this information is of critical importance, you must also be able to measure the effectiveness of the training to make changes as needed. An SMS enables you to evaluate each team member’s competence so that retraining or special attention can be given to those who may be lacking. You can also keep track of initial training and schedule any follow-up training for employees on a set schedule. Being able to access these records ensures that you keep employees up-to-date with any new training regulations as all their training is well-documented.

Data-Driven Goals

Without employing intelligent software to turn data into reporting you can use, there is a greater potential for accidents caused by human error. With an SMS in play, you can rely on accurate data to create both short-term and long-term goals that benefit safety management within your organization. Without being able to access data as it is input throughout different departments and at different levels of your organization, you’re likely planning and making goals without a comprehensive understanding of where your areas for improvement are. An SMS takes the guesswork out of goal setting for your organization. You no longer have to rely on scraps of information to create a big picture. Instead, you can turn to your SMS to identify the exact areas that require your attention, helping you operate with greater efficiency.

Financial Benefits 

Although certainly, you understand that a single accident can wreak havoc on your organization, it’s really about the 1,000 cuts that can kill your bottom line. Smaller-scale events can easily affect insurance premiums, damage your reputation as an airport, and cause loss of business, fines, and even loss of income. On the other hand, implementing an SMS helps to reduce employee turnover, reduces overall stress for your team members, and encourages engagement from top to bottom when it comes to improving general operations.

It’s all these seemingly unimportant oversights that can detrimentally affect the whole of your organization. Although an SMS does not completely eliminate the potential for accidents, it does set you up with higher quality data that allows you to make the best safety decisions. These safety decisions keep your organization in a proactive and protective state. So, as long as you utilize the SMS as intended and follow best practices, your organization is emboldened to prioritize and contribute to safety.

Business Benefits 

Although an SMS is designed to hyperfocus on safety management, its benefits extend throughout your business. Within the aviation industry, safety reputation is everything. Aside from the financial benefits and the cost avoidance related to the implementation of an SMS, you also set your airport up to enjoy a better reputation among your customers and in the media. You can expect a higher sales volume when your reputation precedes you. Plus, your investors view you as more trustworthy (which impacts their sense of loyalty). Your employees and your customers can enjoy better stability, which means you can enjoy less turnover. Over the long term, your safety decision-making is refined, which impacts your ability to create superior long-term goals.

Set your organization up to utilize reliable data and transform training initiatives, financial forecasts, and business benefits with an SMS powered by Aerosimple. Try the airport safety management software risk-free over the course of 60 days to explore all the features that advance your organization.