Passenger ships: the role of the safety management system

Though safety policies are unique to each business, there are three key features (aside from the components required by law) that all SMSs should include to guarantee safe, productive work environments:

• Continual improvement measures: sometimes called ’safety assurance’ measures, continual improvement measures are designed to evaluate the ongoing effectiveness of the SMS and any implemented risk control strategies.
• Risk management programme: the safety risk management programme includes procedures that help safety leaders identify new risks and hazards as they arise, develop new controls and assess their efficacy.
• Cultural supports: corporate culture is key to curating a safe working environment. SMSs must include clear guidance on the company’s plans for training, communication and values to ensure all employees understand the importance of workplace safety; why certain rules, regulations, and protocols are in place; and the potential consequences of not adhering to the SMS’ guidance. 

Step-by-step to a stronger SMS

To improve existing protocols, companies must engage in a robust implementation process: 

• Establish a baseline of current performance
  The first step is an audit that examines current procedures and practices. This will help to ensure the highest level of safety and compliance standards throughout your organisation by conducting internal reviews to determine the legitimacy and effectiveness of your organisation’s existing SMS. This involves a review of your manual’s governance, management of change, and review and approval processes for alignment with applicable regulatory guidance.
• Identify opportunities for improvement 
  Using the insights gained from the audit and their extensive experience in building safer operational models, companies can identify compliance gaps, benchmark performance against industry standards, and opportunities for other improvements that can help reduce incidents and costs, enhance productivity and efficiency, improve reputation and build a strong safety culture that helps maintain stakeholders’ confidence.
  You can use this as a guide to ensure your new SMS framework both aligns with current International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards, and includes additional measures that help to protect your assets. 
• Develop and/or update standard operational procedures (SOPs) and checklists
  You can now begin updating existing operational documentation and identifying areas for supporting checklists within each SOP. It may also be valuable to conduct working sessions with various internal stakeholders to inform further SOP and checklist updates to ensure compliance with all internal policies and regulations. This is imperative for promoting standardisation across all internal documents, which will ease the overall implementation process.
• Gain approval and implement efficiencies to drive widespread adoption 
  Once you have developed a functional and actionable SMS, you can begin to roll-out the new SMS throughout the enterprise and attain buy-in from various business areas. It may also be helpful to explore technological support that streamlines outlined processes such as data entry, reporting or any other administrative work that may arise from updated policies. Investing in automation tools like these may help departmental leadership get up to speed faster and adhere to new guidance more effectively.
• Pursue continual improvement and optimisation
  Safety management is a continual process. As risks and threats change, so too do the controls needed to address them. Leadership should conduct regular assessments of compliance, address corrective and preventive actions, engage in root cause analyses and adjust their quality management systems as needed to meet evolving operational requirements. They should also be sure to update training and cultural initiatives to reflect any changes that may arise.
• Safety and beyond
  A robust SMS not only enhances transparency and stakeholder communication, but also allows you to better optimise your operations and improve your bottom line – all while adhering to regulations.

In the long term, an effective and efficient SMS system will help create a strong corporate culture which better supports scaling strategies in a safer environment and reduces the risk of systematic failures, ultimately setting the company up for success from a business and financial perspective.

SMS helps organisations achieve these objectives while maintaining compliance with evolving local and federal standards so their fleets – whether comprising ferries, leisure ships, freight trains, towing or any other type of vessel – stay safe and compliant.

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