In the social media “safety sphere,” it is literally impossible to spend five minutes and not be bombarded by all the new approaches to “safety.” In many of these new approaches, they will almost unilaterally denounce the traditional approach to safety management and provide case studies to prove their point. Maybe I am just an old dog and can’t learn these new tricks, or I have seen what a formal Safety Management System (SMS) can do for an organization and believe in the SIMPLE approach.
In these studies, where they debate and attempt to convince me of the need for a new approach (name your choice of the many new approaches), they will usually demonstrate the ups and downs of performance using the older traditional methods, such as a formal SMS. We can all nod in unison as we have all lived this turbulent performance (e.g., OSHA-free last year, only to have three recordables already before April!). But here is what I have noticed over three decades of building SMSs…
Very few organizations have a fully functioning SMS, much less a mature SMS.
This observation even applies to many organizations mandated to have an SMS because they call under OSHA/EPA process safety standards.
So, is it a flawed approach, or is it a lack of dedication to a formal and structured SMS?
