W HI TE PA P ER

4 PILLARS OF AVIATION SAFETY : PART 1

How SMS solutions help

implement safety policy
Executive Summary
Since 2009, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has required member states to make the
implementation of safety management systems (SMS) that comply with ICAO standards and recommended
practices (SARPs) mandatory for aviation organizations.

As put forward by ICAO, an SMS comprises four basic components, or pillars, of safety management:

1. Safety 3. Safety
Policy Promotion

4 pillars of
Aviation Safety

2. Safety 4. Safety Risk

Assurance Management

Following the global pandemic, the number of passengers that travel via airplane per year has been increasing,
with 3.2 billion passengers transported worldwide in 2022. In the same year, the accident rate was 2.05
accidents per million departures, which is 6.3% higher than the previous year. [1] Additionally, when it comes to
choosing an airline, customers typically have a wide variety of options, and any negative reviews or aspect of a
journey that falls short in terms of safety could see your airline become a secondary choice. This is why aviation
safety and staying on top of it is more important than ever.

The first of these four pillars, safety policy, enables aviation organizations to establish and implement a
procedural framework in which roles, responsibilities, authority and accountability can be established in order
to implement safety management at all levels and in all areas of the organization. This white paper considers
how an integrated SMS solution can help implement safety policy whilst streamlining processes and identifying
improvement opportunities.

1. ICAO Safety Report 2023 ICAO_SR_2023_20230823.pdf Ideagen / 4 Pillars of Aviation Safety: Part 1 - Safety Policy / 2
What is safety policy?
Within an ICAO-compliant SMS, safety policy forms the basis of a procedural framework in which aviation
organizations can set objectives in order to ensure an acceptable level of operational safety throughout the
organization. By establishing roles, responsibilities, authority and accountability to manage safety effectively, an
organization can develop and encourage safety as the core of every aspect of its activities and actions.

Safety policy itself, then, can be broken down into four elements:

1. Procedural frameworks

2. Roles, responsibilities and relationships

3. Executive management involvement

4. Safety and quality

What is an integrated safety management system (SMS) solution?

An integrated SMS solution offers software and services that provide a framework for a systematic and holistic
approach to SMS management. Such solutions also provide a centralized system to implement and manage
SMS processes. From documenting and distributing policies and procedures through to identifying opportunities
for continual improvement, SMS solutions enable aviation organizations to adopt a systematic approach to
managing safety, and at the same time attain a holistic viewpoint of their SMS status.

Ideagen / 4 Pillars of Aviation Safety: Part 1 - Safety Policy / 3

1. Procedural frameworks
How can an integrated SMS solution help to establish
procedural frameworks?
Within any management system, two key components are procedures and controls. Within an SMS, having first
established safety policies and objectives, organizations must then develop procedures from them to enable
their implementation. Organizations must also put controls in place to monitor safety-related activities and
actions. Such controls ensure that procedures can be carried out in compliance with safety policies
and objectives.

DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT
An integrated SMS solution such as Ideagen Coruson, enables management to give
appropriate staff on-demand access to relevant, accurate information at the point of need.
With an integrated solution that incorporates a comprehensive document management
system, organizations can ensure that SMS policies and procedures are up-to-date and
directly available.

PROCEDURE-BASED TRAINING
By automatically identifying staff impacted by changes to safety and quality policies,
an integrated solution can enable the scheduling of relevant procedure-based training.
Integrated SMS solutions can also enable the scheduling, tracking and recording of training
activities and actions by notifying appropriate staff about upcoming safety and quality
training events automatically.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT
As well as a centralized system to manage documents, an integrated solution can also
offer automated change control management, including the ability to notify relevant staff
of actions for which they are responsible, and to escalate outstanding approvals and
acknowledgments to the appropriate person.

ANALYSIS AND IMPROVEMENT

An integrated SMS solution enables the analysis of information related to aviation safety
in order to identify root causes. By being able to carry out detailed analysis of all incidents,
occurrences and audit findings, such solutions can enable the analysis of root cause trends to
identify improvement opportunities, to reduce overhead costs and to reduce exposure to risk.

RAISING CHANGE REQUESTS

By automating the change request process, an integrated SMS solution can enable all staff to
raise changes against controlled documentation at each and every stage of the document
management process. This ensures that aviation organizations can encourage relevant
personnel to contribute to the change management process.

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2. Roles, responsibilities and
relationships
How can an integrated SMS solution help to manage roles,
responsibilities and relationships?
Within aviation, regulators must establish and implement oversight systems to maintain and improve safety
levels. A critical element of any safety oversight system is the publication and distribution of regulations,
standards and policies to ensure that safety risk can be managed effectively.

REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
By enabling completed, outstanding and overdue safety actions to be tracked and monitored,
an integrated SMS solution provides a systematic and holistic view of the compliance status
throughout the organization, and enables the demonstration of regulatory compliance
on demand.

AUDIT MANAGEMENT
From scheduling, planning and conducting to reporting, follow-up and conclusion, an
integrated SMS solution enables aviation organizations to manage all internal and external
audits, including 14 CFR Part 91, 14 CFR Part 61 and 14 CFR Part 145, as well as ICAO SMS, IOSA
and ISAGO.

CORRECTIVE AND PREVENTIVE ACTION (CAPA) MANAGEMENT

By enabling organizations to quickly and easily report hazards and non-compliances, an
integrated SMS solution helps to reduce the time and effort spent in managing corrective and
preventive actions as well as to accelerate time to completion.

OCCURRENCE MANAGEMENT
An integrated SMS solution enables all staff to raise reports on safety deficiencies at the point
of need, irrespective of their position or seniority, ensuring that organizations can adopt a
systematic and holistic approach to managing subsequent investigations.

DISTRIBUTION OF SAFETY-RELATED INFORMATION

By providing a centralized system for the distribution of relevant safety-related information
to appropriate personnel, an integrated SMS solution can enable greater visibility of such
information, as well as encouraging greater ownership in safety-related activities and actions.

Ideagen / 4 Pillars of Aviation Safety: Part 1 - Safety Policy / 5

 NOTIFICATION AND ESCALATION
An integrated SMS solution like Ideagen Coruson can automatically notify relevant personnel
of upcoming actions, as well as enabling the escalation of overdue actions. Such solutions can
also enhance SMS ownership by offering point-of need access to the SMS from notifications of
upcoming or overdue actions.

TRAINING MANAGEMENT
With the ability to review training needs against policy requirements and person specifications,
an integrated SMS solution enables organizations to ensure that the appropriate personnel
have the relevant expertise and experience to carry out their roles and responsibilities.

3. Executive management
involvement
How can an integrated SMS solution help to encourage executive
management involvement?
SMS specifies that executive management bear ultimate responsibility for the safety of the system, as well as for
overall operational safety. Having established safety policy and objectives, executive management must also
define the organization’s expectations of staff at all levels and in all areas. As well as ensuring that staff know
and understand their responsibilities, executive management must encourage them to participate in activities
relating to safety. To ensure the effectiveness of safety controls, management must plan, organize, direct, and
control safety-related activities and actions.

DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT
With direct access to controlled documents and the ability to manage change control quickly
and easily, an integrated SMS solution enables management to implement and disseminate
changes to safety policies and procedures, while simultaneously reducing the impact of
changes on safety-related activities.

TRAINING MANAGEMENT
Management can track and monitor staff training centrally to ensure that all information
related to employee competencies and job descriptions can be continuously maintained.
Management can also identify training needs in order to prevent competency gaps that could
impact the SMS and ultimately safety.

Ideagen / 4 Pillars of Aviation Safety: Part 1 - Safety Policy / 6

 WORKLOAD
Automatic escalation and delegation ensures that overdue actions can be addressed and
completed, with outstanding actions delegated and controlled. With increased visibility of all
actions across the SMS and therefore the organization, management can encourage greater
ownership of the actions for which staff are responsible.

ANALYSIS
With quick and easy access to all safety-related information, an integrated solution enables
greater traceability during internal and external audit. Such solutions also provide detailed
graphical analysis that assists in management review by enabling the comparison of safety-
related information across the organization.

REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
By enabling completed, outstanding and overdue safety actions to be tracked and monitored,
an integrated SMS solution provides a systematic and holistic view of the compliance status
throughout the organization. With greater transparency, organizations can demonstrate their
compliance with the requirements of national and international regulations to customers,
regulators and shareholders.

PROCEDURES AND CONTROLS

An integrated SMS solution enables management to effectively plan and organize safety-
related activities within a systematic and holistic framework. In addition, integrated solutions
can ensure direct access to safety critical information and enable comprehensive monitoring
and control of all actions required by the SMS across the organization.

4. Safety and quality

How can an integrated SMS solution help to improve safety
and quality?
Within the aviation industry, safety policy is the foundation of the SMS: industry best practice recommends
that SMS should be based on quality processes, and regulatory guidance material recognizes the QMS as the
foundation on which SMS should be built. A vital aspect of safety management is maintaining and improving
process quality, particularly where activities and actions impact on safety. As well as specifying the definition of
safety and quality policies, SMS recommends that aviation organizations integrate both management systems
wherever possible.

DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT
By assisting with the creation and control of quality and safety documentation, an integrated
SMS solution enables quality and safety processes to be communicated across the
organization, including operations, ground handling and engineering.

Ideagen / 4 Pillars of Aviation Safety: Part 1 - Safety Policy / 7

CHANGE MANAGEMENT
An integrated SMS solution like Ideagen Coruson enables the effective management of policy
change from initial request through drafting, approval, distribution and publishing, as well
as ensuring the availability of policy and procedure documentation across the organization
through secure web-based access.

DISTRIBUTION OF SAFETY AND QUALITY RELATED INFORMATION

By providing a system for the distribution of relevant safety related information to
appropriate personnel, an integrated SMS solution can ensure that every person
throughout the organization can contribute to the organization’s knowledge and
understanding of its operations.

NOTIFICATION AND ESCALATION

By notifying relevant personnel of SMS and QMS activities and actions, an integrated SMS
solution provides greater visibility and traceability of safety and quality related actions and
encourages greater participation in SMS and QMS activities.

AUDIT MANAGEMENT
By integrating multiple management systems within a single solution, organizations can
reduce the duplication of effort that multiple safety and quality audit programs can incur, as
well as more closely integrate safety and quality related activities to reduce gaps between
systems and controls.

CORRECTIVE AND PREVENTIVE ACTION (CAPA) MANAGEMENT

With an integrated solution that enables the follow-up and completion of corrective and
preventive actions resulting from findings raised, management can monitor all information
related to internal and external evaluation programs at each and every stage of the audit
management process.

ANALYSIS AND IMPROVEMENT

By enhancing the identification of opportunities for improvement throughout the organization,
an integrated SMS solution helps to continually improve safety and quality by promoting a
corporate culture that develops and encourages adherence to best practices.

INTEGRATED SAFETY AND QUALITY MANAGEMENT

In maintaining both SMS and QMS activities with an integrated SMS solution, aviation
organizations can achieve a systematic approach to managing safety and quality, at
the same time attaining a holistic view of their safety and quality status throughout
the organization.

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Safety policy –
the Ideagen advantage
With SMS an international regulatory requirement since 2009, establishing safety policy effectively at all levels
and in all areas of the organization is of paramount importance for aviation organizations.

The effective establishment of safety policy is vital to successfully implementing SMS that comply with ICAO
SARPs and contribute to the continual improvement of safety and quality throughout the organization.

With a SMS solution developed around the four components of safety management, organizations can put
into place a robust and scalable framework that supports the effective establishment of safety policy and the
implementation of ICAO-compliant SMS.

Ideagen Coruson provides centralized and standardized frameworks for maintaining and improving safety and
quality management in all areas and at all levels of the organization.

From documenting and distributing policies and procedures to continually identifying opportunities for
improvement, Ideagen Coruson is your solution for:

 managing roles, responsibilities and relationships

 encouraging executive management involvement
 establishing procedural frameworks
 improving safety and quality

With Ideagen Coruson, aviation organizations can adopt a systematic and holistic approach to managing
safety and quality that meets the requirements of multiple regulations, from ICAO SMS, ISAGO and IOSA, to 14
CFR Part 91, 14 CFR Part 61 and 14 CFR Part 145, through to Air OPS, Part-FCL and Part-145.

Ideagen / 4 Pillars of Aviation Safety: Part 1 - Safety Policy / 9

 Safety Safety Safety Safety Risk
Policy Assurance Promotion Management

You will require different aspects of this solution depending on what

stage you are at on your individual journey to Operational Excellence.

Let Ideagen work with you on each step of your journey.

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