The introduction of safety management systems (SMS) across aviation has led the industry to change the way it manages its safety performance. Historically, the focus was on making equipment more reliable and line operators more aware of human performance limitations in interactions with machines, with other human beings and in the operating environment. Lessons were derived primarily from accident and incident investigations. But increasingly, SMS is leading the industry toward holistically looking at the production process and finding room for improvement in it.
According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), “there is emerging consensus within the aviation industry about the need to adopt a positive stance and anticipate, rather than regret, the negative consequences of human error in system safety. This is a sensible objective. The way to achieve it is by pursuing innovative approaches rather than updating or optimizing methods from the past. After more than …
