Stolzer

Don’t confuse quality management with SMS

Quality management is an underpinning of Safety Management Systems (SMS), but they should not be confused as being one in the same, advised Dr Alan Stolzer co-editor of Implementing Safety Management Systems in Aviation. Dr. Stolzer discussed the similarities and differences before an audience assembled for the 2011 Center for General Aviation Research (CGAR) conference ̶ CGAR is an FAA Center of Excellence.

A solid SMS is built upon quality management principles, but a comparison between the FAA's SMS Framework and ISO's AS9100 quality management standard revealed substantial differences. Stolzer undertook this work as part of an FAA grant to assist the organization in implementing SMS. Other tasks he described to the CGAR audience included development of a process for producing a system description, examining lifecycle and data exchange issues, and decomposing an accident to identify Safety Risk Management and Safety Assurance connections.

Alan J. Stolzer

 

 

Implementing Safety Management Systems in Aviation is a new book that offers significant guidance and best practice on implementing SMS programs.

 

 

 

Safety Management Systems in Aviation covers the essential points of SMS and discusses the quality management underpinnings of SMS, the four pillars; risk management, reliability engineering, SMS implementation and the scientific rigor that mus be designed into proactive safety.

 

The above book are part of the series, Ashgate Studies in Human Factors for Flight Operations.