Safety management is critical in identifying a company’s risk exposures. An appropriate selection of safety measures is, therefore, a major concern for all firms in minimizing the occurrence of workplace accidents. An organization must adopt effective incident planning strategies and incorporate safety management systems towards ensuring the security of the employees and other organizational stakeholders. Identifying the role of the Safety Management system in an airport operation is key in assessing risk factors attributable to an incident.
Definition of Safety Management System Plan (SMS)
A Safety Management System is a framework of a set of procedures adopted by the management of an organization to identify, assess, manage, and eliminate operational hazards to ensure quality and risk-free processes. Adopting SMS guidelines is beneficial to the entire operations at an airport. For instance, it provides a range of protective precautions to ensure employees’ safety when handling tasks. It provides a formal and systematic approach to investigating, identifying, eliminating, and controlling any hazardous risks. It is also crucial in emphasizing on caution and effective management of risks to ensure the health and safety of workers. Adopting SMS also reduces costs and improves the efficiency of handling employee risks.
Components of an SMS
The four components of an SMS include safety risk management policies that focus on administration’s commitments in creating rules and regulations that continually meet safety goals. Safety assurance, on the other hand, aims to identify risk hazards and assess the impending threats associated with those risks. Safety promotions also target the identification of objectives for improvements in any risk assessment program. Finally, the role and responsibility concerns of SMS provide an inclusive engagement of an organization’s employees in responding to risks.
The Role of Safety Risk Management (SRM) in ARFF Response
The components of SRM plays a crucial role in Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting processes. For instance, identifying hazards can be implemented to ascertain all the risks associated with ARFF (Shankul & Buke, 2019). After identifying the risks, an evaluation of the hazardous threats as a safety assurance measure is necessary in implementing a risk control plan. A risk assessment also evaluates and reduces any emerging hazards that could have been missed out in the first risk identification procedures. Risk analysis and mitigation plan are finally implemented in determining safety precautions, revising, and putting risk controls in the entire rescue team operations.
The Benefit of Updating an AEP
Updating the Airport Emergency Plan (AEP) is associated with many benefits. For instance, it ensures a counterchecking of safety procedures in providing compliance with the accepted safety guidelines (Karagiannis et al., 2019). The process is also vital in identifying new risks and ensuring that the existing safety recommendations cover any emerging threat. Having an AEP at the airport is crucial in limiting a hazardous incident’s impacts by providing a quick emergency response.
Potential Expansion Needs in Responding to Cases of Emergency
There are several potential expansion needs in critical units of an airport in responding effectively to a risk occurrence. For instance, the emergency operations center of an airport must consider the required number of personnel and be well equipped with operational equipment to effectively respond to risk occurrence. The communication team must also provide alert notifications and emergency public information in any hazardous incident (O’Brien et al., 2020). Adequate protection and a health unit must also be availed at the airport in responding to an emergency.
The Rationale for Inclusion in an Emergency Response
An airport’s operations must comply with acceptable regulatory frameworks while addressing emergencies to provide an inclusive emergency response. Effective training is also vital in providing all response team in coordinating a response that gives the best result. As such, the adoption of SMS is key to the safety of an organization. It ensures identification of possible risks, minimizing and controlling the occurrence of accidents in a firm.
References
Karagiannis, I., Vouros, P., Skouloudis, A., & Evangelinos, K. (2019). Sustainability reporting, materiality, and accountability assessment in the airport industry. Business Strategy and the Environment, 28(7), 1370-1405. Web.
O’Brien, A., Read, G. J., & Salmon, P. M. (2020). Situation awareness in multi-agency emergency response: Models, methods and applications. International Risk Reduction, 48, 1-11. Web.
Shankul, V., & Buke, Y. (2019). Relationship of 5S, TPM and SMS to enhance safety performance of manufacturing industry. Journal of Industrial Safety Engineering, 6(2), 1-13. Web.