Safety Management System

As Asiana Airlines Flight 214 flew into San Francisco International Airport on Sunday July 7, the Boeing 777’s 291 passengers didn’t know that the man at the controls had never landed this kind of plane at this airport before.  Does it matter that the pilot at the time – aviation veteran Lee Kang-kuk – has only…...

A little boy went into a drug store, grabbed a stool at the counter and pulled it over to the telephone. He climbed onto the stool so he could reach the buttons on the phone and proceeded to dial someone. The store-owner observed and listened to the conversation. Boy: ‘Lady, Can you give me the…...

Unsafe acts are of two (2) distinct types: errors and violations Errors arise from informational problems and fall into three (3) categories: skill-based slips and lapses, rule-based mistakes and knowledge-based mistakes Violations arise from motivational factors and fall into four types: routine (or corner-cutting) violations, thrill-seeking or optimizing violations, necessary violations and exceptional violations Everyone…...

Risk assessment is the process where you: Identify Hazards Analyze Hazardsor Assess the risk that hazard poses to people, equipment, business Determine appropriate ways to eliminate or control the hazard… Membership Required You must be a member to access this content.View Membership LevelsAlready a member? Log in here...

A highly reliable (resilient) organization is a LEARNING ORGANIZATION. Learning organizations exhibit five (5) main characteristics: system thinking, personal mastery, mental models, a shared vision, and team learning… Membership Required You must be a member to access this content.View Membership LevelsAlready a member? Log in here...

Safety is largely about actions.  But it’s also about attitude. We can observe actions objectively. But it’s harder to see into employees’ heads and hearts and examine their attitude toward workplace safety.  Every employee must be dead serious about safety—or they could end up dead. As well as taking job safety seriously, a positive attitude…...

An Israeli safety study looked at a practice termed “Management by walking around” (MBWA).  This practice has aroused much interest in management science and practice. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the adaptation of this practice to safety management. We describe a three-year-long case study that collected empirical data in which a modified…...

This happens when the breach of essential safety rules is not only widely known about but also tolerated and accepted by peers and management as normal and acceptable behavior given the circumstances. Various factors can contribute to the normalization of deviance:… Membership Required You must be a member to access this content.View Membership LevelsAlready a...

A great resource to help develop a Safety Management System (SMS) is DOE’s Integrated Safety Management System.  They offer dozens of documents explaining each element and how it is intended to function within the SMS.  DOE has been using this SMS since 1996 with world-class results.  I love the structure and have used aspects of…...

Two words that are almost always used synonymously in safety discussions. And to be blunt, these two words are light years apart in science. Take for example the act of flying on a commercial airline…. Membership Required You must be a member to access this content.View Membership LevelsAlready a member? Log in here...

All individuals take personal responsibility for safety. Responsibility and authority for safety are well defined and clearly understood. Reporting relationships, positional authority, and team responsibilities emphasize the overriding importance of safety.   Attributes:   Individuals understand the importance of adherence to operating and safety standards. All levels of the organization exercise accountability for shortfalls in…...