Welcome to the Safety Management System (SMS) Partners newsletter! This month's newsletter includes the following articles:

• NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) Most Wanted List: Safety Management Systems
• Successful SMS is based on the Culture of the Organization
• Safety and Ethics = Better Bottom Line
• New Features Added to SMS Pro

If there is a specific SMS topic that you would like to read about, or if you have any questions, please send us an e-mail. And of course, if you like what you are reading, please forward this e-mail to a friend!

NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) MOST WANTED LIST

SAFETY AND ETHICS = BETTER BOTTOM LINE

Can the "Golden Rule" be used as the basis for developing and implementing safety programs in the workplace without negatively affecting the bottom line? Yes, but it is up to safety professionals to have the moral courage to embrace ethical, not just regulatory standards, says Indiana University of Pennsylvania Safety Sciences professor Dr. Jan Wachter.

Many aspects of the traditional approaches to safety management could be viewed as less than ethical, but safety programs based on the more ethical basis of doing the right thing are a better and sustaining basis for managing safety programs in the long run, Wachter writes in "Ethics ñ the Absurd Yet Preferred Approach to Safety Management," published in the June 2011 issue of Professional Safety.

Laws and regulations largely inform individuals what they cannot do, but ethics instruct individuals and organizations as to what they should do. Ethics are about doing the right thing, not about not doing the wrong thing, he explains.

Wachter supports a "safety management systems approach" in the workplace, that is, recognizing the unsafe acts, unsafe conditions and accidents are all symptoms of problems in the organizational management system. In this philosophy, senior management is ultimately responsible for building an ethical system that can effectively analyze and control workplace hazards. This means that safety is no longer a "sunk cost," but an integral function of doing business, just like quality.

But why would management adopt this approach, especially in light of challenging economic times?

"Perhaps the greatest economic reason to support an ethics-based approach to safety management within a capitalistic system is that prosperity generates an environment where continuing improvement and reduced risk are affordable," Wachter says.

The bottom line: in order to catalyze management's use of an ethical safety management systems approach, safety professionals need to promote a more ethical approach to managing their own profession. This strategy requires moral courage, conviction and professional unity, including a bottom-up approach at their worksites and through professional organizations, and understanding the need to look out for workers and the public despite culture, pressure and misdirection from management and peers.

This article was published in Newswise and sourced from Indiana University of PA June 27, 2011.

NEW FEATURES ADDED TO SMS PRO

Northwest Data Solutions has made some recent and valuable improvements to SMS Pro. A summary of the new SMS Pro features and enhancements follow:

Vendor Management Module

• Risk assess vendors
• Evaluate or audit vendors
• Rank vendors
• Comment on vendors & contractors
• Attach files/documentation to vendors

Management of Change Module

• Manage/document organizational change
• This module is an adaptation/extension of the Process Description Library module

OSHA 300 Module

• Employee illness & injury reports
• Logs days off or reassignments
• Generates annual summary to post required documentation of employee injuries & illnesses

Audit Scheduler - Calendar View

This changes the audit work flow as:

1. Create audit inspection form
2. Create audit in calendar view (can be recurring)
3. Responsible manager creates optional auditing team
4. Conduct the audit
5. Team lead notifies responsible manager that audit is completed
6. Responsible manager accepts audit (findings and concern), thus stopping the audit
7. Audit findings and concerns are managed by responsible manager

Message Board - Can Replace Must Acknowledge and Read File

• Aircraft or vehicle status board
• Airport status board for latest airport/landing area conditions
• Email reminders to those not reading messages

Issue Manager >> Classify

• Link related issues to focus your risk management efforts
• Associate reported issues with vendors (requires setting up vendor management module)

Issue Manager >> Select Issue

• Request status update by safety manager to assigned manager
• Automated escalation to safety committee feature for non-responsive managers

Concept of Auditing Teams

• Auditing team lead adds new team members to also work on audit
• Only team lead can close audit
• Only responsible manager can complete audit by accepting the audit