Introduction to the ATO Safety Management System - FAA66000024
Section 2 Video Transcript
The Wright Brothers started with a passion for powered, controlled flight. They were determined to succeed.
They gathered data by reading and researching other aviation pioneers. They organized their information into journals and notebooks. They made thousands of calculations and conducted years of analysis and experiments to test their assumptions. They formally documented their findings so they could perform critical analysis. They identified problems and devised solutions over many years, and then they fixed their aircraft over and over again until they verified and were assured that their fixes actually were correct.
It took seven long years before they were ultimately successful on the morning of December 17th in 1903, when Orville and Wilbur made history.
The Wright Brothers were focused. They followed a structured, scientific approach based on data. They were analytical and established policies to guide their efforts. They promoted their discoveries and even provided safety instructions to train and certify the first pilots.
Take a look at this video, and you will see how our SMS helps us gather data, compile and organize the data, then analyze information to help us identify potential sources of risk. And then we take action to mitigate the potential risk. But we aren't done yet. After we fix something, we must monitor the performance of our fix to make sure we have successfully mitigated the risk.
[Controllers and pilots talking on radio]
MAN: Complexity -- the adversary of clarity. The more complex a system is, the harder it is to see inside.
So how do we see through the complexity in the NAS? How do we manage complexity so we can lower risk? How do we ensure safety based on facts? And most importantly, how do we identify potential problems before they become safety risks or even life-threatening hazards? [Splash]
We need a tool that can help us gain visibility. We need a tool that proactively looks at ourselves, our technology, and our actions so we can make informed decisions.
In the Air Traffic Organization, that tool is called the Safety Management System. The SMS is simply this -- it's a tool that helps us collect information, find problems, and then fix them.
The SMS process can be simplified into five easy steps. First is reporting.
This is where data is collected from whatever part of the system we are looking at. Data can come from just about anywhere. It can be gathered automatically or collected through detailed human reporting. Good data is what makes the SMS process truly work. And without quality reporting, we wouldn't be able to move forward.
The next step is to compile all this data into relative buckets. For example, does the data relate to an airspace procedure? Or a communications issue? Or did the data come from the Training Academy? Or from a maintenance report? We want to make sure the data is vetted and valid. That way, we can compare apples to apples.
Now, once the data is compiled and organized, we can then start analyzing it, looking for potential problems or areas that can be improved. By finding new ways to examine the data, we can discover potential risks or inefficiencies that we just couldn't see clearly before.
After careful analysis, we can then start identifying areas that should be improved. We target the problems where we can have the most impact first by setting priorities and then defining goals.
And then the SMS process comes to full term when we determine a plan of correction and take the necessary action to improve our systems or services.
So that's it. That's what we mean when we talk about applying our SMS principles. For every employee, regardless of where you work, we will use the SMS to find risk and take action to mitigate risk.
The SMS process is our path to getting it done. It's our tool to find clarity in a sea of complexity.