Safety Management · 2025
An SMS that produced no reports
A fully documented, audit-passing SMS generating almost no occurrence reports — diagnosed and rebuilt from the reporting culture outward.
Placeholder — not a real engagement
Context
The situation.
The SMS had passed its last audit and was documented to the required standard. It was also producing a handful of reports a year from an active training operation, which meant it was not seeing what was happening.
Approach
- Started with what people had observed happen to previous reporters, not with the manual.
- Rebuilt the report form to take under two minutes to complete.
- Introduced a feedback loop so every reporter learns what happened to their report.
- Reset safety performance indicators around events the organisation would actually act on.
Outcome
- Reporting rate rose steadily over the following months, including minor reports from experienced staff.
- Safety review meetings started producing decisions rather than minutes.
- Hazards began surfacing before they became occurrences.
Other engagements
Operations manual restructure after an amendment backlog
A Part-NCC operations manual with nine years of amendments, restructured rather than rewritten.
Instructor standardisation across a training organisation
Three instructors teaching the same syllabus item three different ways, brought onto one standard and kept there.
Tell us what needs to happen.
Describe the operation, the standard you are working to, and the deadline. We reply within one working day.