Aviation Safety Managements Systems  

What would W. Edwards Deming say about aviation safety management systems? Deming died in 1993 but many of his quality and management principals and concepts keep surfacing in new applications and under new terms, for example, safety management systems (SMS) for aviation are a "new" concept being touted by the FAA and ICAO. In the post WWII era, Japan made phenomenal advances in the field of product quality control/assurance and attributed this largely to the visions of Dr. Deming.

Deming’s ideas then were somewhat radical, diverting from traditional quality control to quality assurance, i.e. not having to inspect every item made but using other techniques to ensure conformance to specifications. In fact, it was a systems approach to quality but involved the whole related organization complex. Customer input and statistical quality processing or control were mainstays in Deming’s approach, which also focused on an organization’s management philosophy and leadership qualities as well.

His main principals are found in his 14 Points, Seven Diseases, and his PDCA Cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act). Besides the Japanese wide-spread adoption of the "Deming Way" or "Deming Management Method" as it then became to be known, several U.S. organizations also took to it and reported vast improvements in efficiency, production figures, worker moral, profit and even safety. It was viewed as a radical way to change and improve things. However, for some company leaders it was too much and too radical of a change. And back then there weren’t regulatory authorities like the FAA or ICAO backing up or pushing the adoption of SMS providing the tipping point.

Deming’s position was that the whole package needed to taken on, not just some parts. It is fair to say virtually every industry and organization adopted or adapted some aspects of the Deming Way. By the mid-1980s, other improvement fads came along many springing up from the Deming roots, e.g. Total Quality Management, Zero Defects, Six Sigma, Management by Objectives, Safety Culture, etc.

There are numerous books and articles on Deming and his beliefs and real applications of his methods and my favorites are his book "Out of the Crisis" (1982) and "Deming Management at Work," (1991) by Mary Walton.

Anyone familiar with SMS, first applied to airports and now being applied to airlines, and familiar with Deming would have to say they are near one in the same. Put even more simply — SMS is Deming reincarnate. The prophet of hope, improvement, efficiency and quality still lives among us.

Though he was not a safety guru per se, he did show how safety and regulation and related policies affecting overall safety needed substantial improvements and some U.S. companies did apply his ways with success in their organizations.

And so what would Deming’s words be if he was around today regarding the emerging safety management systems? I can imagine he might say, "I told you the same things back then but you weren’t listening."

Deming’s 14 points (excerpted from Chapter 2 of "Out of the Crisis"):

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.

2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.

3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.

5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

6. Institute training on the job.

7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job.

8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.

9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.

10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships.

11. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.

12. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship.

13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation.