Safety Management Systems, Risk, Performance, and Regulatory - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Federal Aviation Administration 1 Safety Management

Federal Aviation Administration

Safety Management

Systems, Risk, Performance, and Regulatory Strategies

Presented By: Don Arendt, PhD, Senior Technical Advisor for Safety Management FAA Flight Standards Service

Federal Aviation Administration 2 Safety Management

Safety

“Safety is the state in which the risk of harm to persons or property is reduced to, and maintained at or below, an acceptable level through a continuing process of hazard identification and risk management”

ICAO Doc 9859

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Safety: Operational Definition

“Safety is the state in which the risk of harm to persons or property is reduced to, and maintained at or below, an acceptable level through a continuing process of hazard identification and risk management”

ICAO Doc 9859

Operationally defined… “Safety” is How well risk is managed

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Balancing the Priorities: Finding the “Hard Limits”

Safety Money Mission

Decision Making

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Evolving Nature of Causality

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For every complex question there’s a solution that’s clear, simple… …and wrong.

• H. L. Mencken

So where do we go from here?

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System Description System Operation Hazard Ident Risk Control Risk Assmt Risk Analysis Analysis Data Acquisition & Process Corrective Action Perf. Assmt

SRM SA Action: Problem Resolution Design Performance Assessment Analysis Data Description & Context

Safety Management: Core Processes

Getting Facts Making Sense Decisions Making

Information

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Illegal Unsafe SMS Common Cause Unique Cause No Risk Risk Management Compliance Effective Regulation

Compliance and Risk Management

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Control Strategies

• Regulatory Action (Required)
• Formal Voluntary Programs
• Collaborative (Defined Voluntary)
• Promotion, Education, and Awareness

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Regulatory Strategies

• Prescriptive (“Compliance-Based”)

– Typical for Common Cause Risks

• Performance-Based

– More flexible for Diverse Populations

• Risk Based

– Focused on Risk Control

• Process Based (Blended Approach)

– Prescribed Processes – Flexible implementation and specific performance

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All Safety Rules should be “Risk Based”

• Legislative/Regulatory charters directed

toward safety – reducing risk

• Defining the Risk
• Compliance

– “If”: Simple compliance (“letter of the law”) – “How”: Effective compliance (managing the risk)

• Certification, licensing, approval processes

must stress effective means of compliance

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All Rules are Prescriptive

• Rules, “prescribe” acceptable behaviors
• Objective (“black and white”)
• Address “common cause,” technical issues
• Relevance to population narrowly defined
• Lack of fit problems
• Limited flexibility
• Assumption of “effective compliance”

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All Rules are Performance Based

• All rules have expectations for outcomes
• “Performance based” rules can be more

flexible to variables in population

• Depend on defining performance standards
• Ultimate outcomes (accidents) are reactive
• Immediate outcomes dependent on

assumptions of causality

• Measures and oversight strategy must not

be overlooked

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Everything that counts can’t [always] be counted… …everything that can be counted doesn’t [necessarily] count. Albert Einstein

Safety Performance Measures : Challenges

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• Performance of all types of approaches

should be measured and assessed:

– Defining performance – Validity of measures – Reliability of data – Qualitative and quantitative data – Classification systems – Trending

Measurement Considerations

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Traits of a Healthy Culture: High Reliability Organizations (HROs)

• Preoccupation with failure (track small failures)
• Reluctance to (over)simplify
• Sensitivity to operations
• Commitment to resilience (ability to recover)
• Deference to expertise

Weick & Sutcliffe

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“Carelessness and overconfidence are more dangerous than deliberately accepted risk” Wilbur Wright, 1901

Contact: Don Arendt, Ph.D.

(703) 338-7746 (Cell) don.arendt@faa.gov

Wilbur Wright gliding, 1901 Photographs: Library of Congress