ISO 21101:2014 Adventure tourism safety management

Courtesy: ISO 21101:2014 Adventure tourism safety management

Implications

A SMS is intended to act as a business administration structure for an organization to effectively meet its legal obligations under applicable occupational safety and health laws. The scope of the organization’s operations and therefore its risk profile will determine how the SMS is structured and what resources are required to manage occupational health and safety risk effectively. Some organizations may also have to dovetail other management system functions, such as process safety, environmental resource management or quality management together with safety management to meet both regulatory requirements, industry sector requirements and an organizations own internal and discretionary standard requirements.

Safety management should be considered as a part of the overall business management system of an organization and not an add-on to it. Increasingly, management standards across a range of business functions such as environment, quality and safety are now being designed so that these traditionally disparate elements can be integrated and managed within a single business management system and not as separate and stand-alone functions.

Due to the close association between health and safety, safety management systems (SMS) are also increasingly known as occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMS); these two terms can to the greater extent can be used interchangeably.

An SMS is only as good as its implementation – effective safety management means that organisations need to ensure they are looking at all the risks within the organization as a single system, rather than having multiple, competing, ‘Safety Management Silos.’ If safety is not seen holistically, it can interfere with the prioritization of improvements or even result in safety issues being missed. For example, after an explosion in March 2005 at BP’s Texas City Refinery (BP) the investigation concluded that the company had put too much emphasis on personal safety thus ignoring the safety of their processes. The antidote to such silo thinking is the proper evaluation of all risks, a key aspect of an effective SMS

Development of safety management standards

Industry sector standards

Over time, particular safety management models can become a preferred standard within an industry sector which is an approach often driven by industry representative bodies or trade associations. In industries where public safety is a prime consideration or where organisations operate in a high risk industry sector, specific regulations may be introduced which detail requirements that fit the industry risk profile, such as the OSHA requirement for a process safety management system.

Industry specific safety management include:

• The International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP) standard Operating Management System (OMS)  for the oil and gas industry,
• The International Civil Aviation Organization has recommended that all aviation authorities implement SMS regulatory structures.
• Federal Aviation Authority – Safety Management System (SMS) for Airports – Guidance, Tools, & Related Information
• The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) began the process of implementing Safety Management System (SMS) regulations by issuing Terms of Reference (TOR) on July 18, 2011.