We often hear it:
“We have a world-class safety management system.”
They are proud of what they have. They have worked hard to get where they are. But most of the time, they do NOT have a safety management system (SMS). What they have is a safety “compliance manual.” A binder that holds dozens of individual written safety programs, or maybe they have gone hi-tech, and they have their programs in electronic format in a folder on the computers.
But this compliance approach is FAR from having an existing SMS. Compliance is necessary; it can be the foundation of our SMS. But a compliance manual needs the following before it can be claimed to be a functioning SMS.
