IS-BAO Requirement 3.1.2 S2a: Is there a safety policy that Includes a clear statement about providing necessary resources?

The following, from ICAO Document 8959 Safety Management Manual, relates to this IS-BAO Requirement.

  • 2.0 SAFETY MANAGEMENT FUNDAMENTALS
  • 2.7 THE MANAGEMENT DILEMMA

Safety Space

2.7.2 In any organization engaged in the delivery of services, production and safety risks are linked. As production increases, the safety risks may also increase if the necessary resources or process enhancements are not available. An organization must define its production and safety objectives by balancing output with acceptable safety risks.

Also, when defining its production objectives, the organization needs to define defences in order to keep safety risks under control. For a product or service provider, the basic safety defences are technology, training and internal processes and procedures. For the State, the basic defences are similar, i.e. training of personnel, the appropriate use of technology, effective oversight and the internal processes and procedures supporting oversight. The safety space is the zone where an organization balances desired production while maintaining required safety protection through safety risk controls. For example, a manufacturer or air navigation service provider may wish to support anticipated growth through investment in new technologies. These technologies may simultaneously provide the necessary efficiency improvements as well as improved reliability and safety performance.

Such decision making should involve an assessment of both the value added to the organization’s product or service objectives as well as the safety risks involved. The allocation of excessive resources to protection or risk controls may result in the product or service becoming unprofitable, thus jeopardizing the viability of the organization. 2.7.3 On the other hand, excess allocation of resources for production at the expense of protection can have an impact on the safety performance of the product or service and can ultimately lead to an accident. It is therefore essential that a safety boundary be defined that provides early warning that an unbalanced allocation of resources exists or is developing. Therefore, the safety space boundaries should be defined by the management of the organization and reviewed continually to ensure that they accurately reflect the current situation. Refer to Figure 2-6 for an illustration of the boundaries of an organization’s safety space.

2.7.4 The need to balance production and protection has become a readily understood and accepted requirement from a product and service provider perspective.

About Fountain and Associates

Fountain & Associates, Inc. founder Phillip J. Fountain channeled more than 30 years of corporate aviation experience into the design and creation of the iIS-BAO Audit Protocol software. Fountain’s experience includes more than 16,000 hours of flight time in six different business aircraft and 10 years of IS-BAO auditing experience. Fountain and Associates is not affiliated with the IBAC or the IS-BAO protocol in any way.