Maximize Your SMS: Differences Between Audits, Ratings and…

Audits, assessments and investigations are three distinctly different and powerful tools for supporting decision making in an organization’s proactive safety management system (SMS). Understanding the differences between the “big three” elements of SMS Security Assurance (SA) can help us leverage each tool at the right time with minimal resources and lead to the quality decision required as part of SMS risk management.

Defining each of the three SA elements can help us explore their mechanisms, goals, applications, and objectives. To help identify the true purpose of detailed security assurance practices, we might begin by breaking the paradigm that an audit and internal assessment program (IEP) always defaults to ready-made tools or standards for regulatory data collection and best practices.

Audits are a snapshot at best and begin to become stale immediately after the formal findings report and corrective action requirements (CAR) are issued. A fully completed internal audit ensures minimum standards of care but does not provide an opportunity for adjustment. Then enhance your proactive SA management approach and use the following discussions and charts to plan and address a whole different set of ongoing business analysis and assessments.

Keep in mind that there may be some IEP/IAP terms that are outside of our all-too-familiar SMS lexicon.

Audits (internal/external)

Auditing has been present in business for thousands of years. There are different types (according to...