Safety Management and the Concept of Dynamic Risk Management Dashboards

Abstract

Risk management is considered as the core process of an effective safety management system for identifying hazards and assessing risks. However, recent fatal hull loss accidents appear to have resulted from a combination of factors, none of which can alone cause an accident or even a serious incident. Therefore, traditional safety risk assessment processes, risk matrices, hazard logs and conventional risk management methodologies that mainly address individual risks, in some cases remained less effective in preventing major accidents that resulted from cumulative risks. Consequently, air operators have the need not only to proactively identify the ‘initial’ and the ‘residual’ risk of a hazard, but also to recognize the ‘current’ or ‘actual’ risk state of their system and to take the necessary mitigation actions for preventing an accident or a serious incident that may result from a combination of factors. The aim of this paper is to present and explain the concept of Dynamic Risk Management Dashboards (DRMDs), a tool which is a combined, real-time basis, a cross-departmental effort for managing risks resulting from a combination of factors. DRMD could concurrently examine and visualize the actual risk state of an aerodrome, an aircraft, an aircrew or an air traffic route based on a set of pre-defined Risk Acceptance Criteria that have been developed and tailored by each operator. The DRMDs have been implemented and evaluated by the safety department of a large military aviation organization as a proactive safety tool that complements the existing risk management process. Anecdotal results after a six-month trial period showed that DRMD assist decision makers in identifying the cumulative risks of particular missions and effectively in responding to unacceptable risks before authorizing or dispatching a particular flight.