Safety management has become an essential topic in aviation to better assess risks and prevent accidents. Poor risk management practices contribute mainly to aviation accidents, most of which are often catastrophic. This raises concerns about profound ways of managing risks following the established standards to make informed decisions. Pilots must learn to effectively manage risks by applying risk management tools to avoid accidents and make flights less stressful. Organizations should adopt safety management systems (SMS) to improve insights on operations in the aviation industry. The safety toolkits allow pilots and management to establish standard operating procedures and training to educate the personnel on how to assess risks. Every person must understand the significance of putting safety first and ensuring the organization is accident-free to realize both short-term and long-term benefits. The SMS developed in the organization should effectively fit the complexity of operations and provide a comprehensive overview of the safety plan. Although accidents might be inevitable, implementing proactive safety management approaches can reduce the probability of a catastrophic event in aviation.
Importance of Proactive and Predictive Safety Management
The importance of having a proactive SMS cannot be overestimated in organizations as it equips the personnel with knowledge of reducing risks and hazards. In proactive risk management, organizations develop strategies for avoiding and managing existing and emerging risks. This allows the personnel to adapt quickly to a crisis and enables the company to understand the impacts of future risks on the business (Zieja et al., 2015). Firms must integrate proactive risk management practices in the overall business strategy as it remains an essential part of the risk culture. A business can limit its exposure to risks and improve stakeholder value by implementing SMS that provide both clarity and breadth of risks. Failure to manage known risks is a major contributing factor to helicopter accidents since it stems from the lack of accountability and an effective systematic process of identifying and prioritizing risks. Safety management cannot be separated from the core business structure in the aviation industry as business continuity depends on the precautionary measures taken to avoid accidents.
Predictive safety management procedures enable companies to enhance the employee’s learning about the safety processes to keep them motivated and proactive in identifying and managing risks. Proactive management breaks down the system processes to categorize defects and apply controls before an event aggravates (Yilmaz & Flouris, 2019). Companies have an important role in establishing solid objectives and goals to ensure that involved personnel utilizes proactive and predictive methods in collecting risk data. This is followed by implementing proactive safety management, a continuous process that informs decision-making in every aspect of the organization (Zieja et al., 2015). The safety of personnel and equipment is paramount to the organization’s survival since early detection and management of hazards results in minor damages or none. Conventional approaches to safety management involve applying data collection methods from flight monitoring and near-miss events to recognize potential hazards before an incident occurs (Di Gravio et al., 2015). However, proactive methods go beyond this reactive process to include identifying effective mitigations of unidentified risks. Organizations must champion the application of proactive safety programs to identify and develop recommendations and avoid accidents.
SMS allows organizations in the aviation industry to record and report occurrences that could potentially affect the company. These businesses must promote safety assurance by adopting effective safety risk management methodologies. Applying predictive measures leads to discovering potential hazards based on forecast analysis from current and historical data. This approach makes it possible to predict the behavioral patterns of hazards enabling organizations to maintain a focused SMS (Di Gravio et al., 2015). On the other hand, the proactive methodology is based on collecting safety data and analyzing the frequency to estimate an incident’s occurrence. It uses a safety reporting system with information obtained from accident investigation, operational monitoring, and safety reviews. The proactive approach defines safety performance indicators and targets by providing parameters that show an organization’s safety performance (Yilmaz & Flouris, 2019). Companies that apply predictive and proactive management practices achieve their safety objectives and prevent fatal results from accidents. Predictive methodology reinforces proactive measures of safety management by providing forecasts of safety data to inform decisions.
Value of Proactive Risk Management
Proactive risk management is essential in organizations as it helps to control risks and eliminate errors that result in adverse outcomes. Reactive risk management provides information about risks and errors, while the proactive approach encourages a thorough hazard analysis that enables organizations to mitigate the risks. Useful information about operational risks informs proactive risk management to develop controls that limit the occurrence of an incident (Yilmaz & Flouris, 2019). Proactive risk management employs emerging technologies to assess and determine the risk levels cautioning the business from potentially catastrophic outcomes. The increasing public concern, competition, and technological transformation invite organizations to develop control and mitigation measures (Patriarca et al., 2019). Companies exist in a dynamic environment where the sources of hazards continue to evolve, thus calling for proactive risk management that enhances adaptive strategies. Besides, feedback control is encouraged based on the observable data that helps to formulate the safety targets. Risk management involves making decisions in a hazardous process, posing a significant threat to the organizations. The objectives and operational targets of proactive risk management are achieved through effective support systems for decision-making.
Aviation safety has long depended on traditional methods of accident analysis and incidents. Although these practices have been instrumental in promoting safety in the sector, they have a major problem due to their reactive nature (Patriarca et al., 2019). Conventional approaches restrict safety analysis to the adverse outcomes, thus failing to accommodate aviation management’s complexity. This has raised concerns over the effectiveness of reactive approaches leading to the adoption of proactive risk management approaches to manage better and control potential incidents. Notably, the documented information gathered from reactive risk management is used to explore proactive management’s incremental benefits (Patriarca et al., 2019). Proactive risk management is a valuable toolkit in organizations as it supports implementing mitigation efforts and subsequently assessing the effectiveness of the measures taken. In that case, the efficiency of proactive risk management enables organizations to promote safety assurance.
Conclusion
Proactive safety and risk management are essential in organizations as they enable identifying and mitigating potential hazards in aviation. Companies have to adopt both predictive and proactive methodologies to cushion themselves from risks better because the approaches followed contribute largely to collecting, analyzing, and developing safety measures and procedures that enhance decision-making. Lastly, proactive risk management offers new ways of dealing with potential risks enabling the organization to apply modern technologies to improve the decision-making process.
References
Di Gravio, G., Mancini, M., Patriarca, R., & Costantino, F. (2015). Overall safety performance of air traffic management system: Forecasting and monitoring. Safety Science, 72, 351-362. Web.
Patriarca, R., Di Gravio, G., Cioponea, R., & Licu, A. (2019). Safety intelligence: Incremental proactive risk management for holistic aviation safety performance. Safety Science, 118, 551-567. Web.
Yilmaz, A. K., & Flouris, T. G. (2019). Enterprise risk management in aviation management and strategy. In Values, ergonomics and risk management in aviation business strategy (pp. 109-150). Springer, Singapore.
Zieja, M., Smoliński, H., & Gołda, P. (2015). Proactive methods–new quality in aircraft flight safety management. Journal of KONBIN, 36(1), 105-114. Web.