I don’t write about safety management systems (SMSs) much because everybody else seems to be getting “burned out” on the subject. Back when the international standards for SMS were signed out at ICAO, we all knew we were going to launch a new industry full of consultants. We also knew that all these consultants couldn’t possibly know much about the subject and would be forced to regurgitate the ICAO guidance material that was being put out. It was obvious that the process people dealing with ISO and QMS would embrace the concept of SMS and treat it as another process exercise. It was also clear that regulators were going to have a very hard time evaluating an SMS and would be forced to reduce the concept to a series of checklists.
All of those predictions have come true, so it is time to take an honest look at where we are and where we go from here. The ICAO guidance was built around the “four pillars,” so now everybody has an SMS with four pillars. And of course, now ev…
