A Comprehensive Contemporary Safety Management Systems Framework Including Planning and Monitoring Guidance

Various literature references discuss the value and the components of Safety Management Systems (SMS), which comprise the contemporary collection of management policies, procedures and practices that may ensure a safe working environment and contribute to overall organisational performance. Moreover, comprising a system, SMS must ideally follow the principles of Quality Management, and especially during its initial operation, the planning and control procedures must be appropriately addressed. In the frame of a research regarding the transition of an aviation organisation safety program to an SMS, the combination of safety/quality literature and professional experience collected through interviews led to the development of an inclusive SMS framework. The specific SMS scheme encompasses the safety elements and sub-elements referred in literature and suggests explicit safety planning and assessment methods and tools. Moreover, during the interviews, various comments and remarks were recorded concerning specific safety topics, which complement the SMS framework produced. The SMS tool developed may comprise a basis for enriching the existing frameworks introduced by international and state authorities, for developing a new SMS in an organisation or for conducting a gap analysis/performance assessment regarding existing safety programs and SMS schemes.