System Approach for Safety Oversight Program (SASO)
As Flight Standards Service (AFS) continues to move toward a Safety Management System (SMS), the SASO Program Office is forming a Safety Promotion Outreach Team to communicate SMS and system safety to field offices. Beginning Spring 2009, SPOT will educate the Flight Standards workforce on SMS, gather data from the field, and help develop field communication materials.
Thanks to the more than 100 FAA employees who applied to serve on this team. We will announce the selected volunteers in January.
As evident by today’s outstanding safety record, the FAA’s traditional approach to aviation safety has been very successful. However, we’ll need a more proactive approach to keep making safety progress. Implementing a Safety Management System (SMS) will create a positive culture of prevention that actively promotes safety in all business activities. An SMS approach reduces risk by controlling processes to identify and prevent problems before they start, instead of problem-solving after an accident.
To support Flight Standards (AFS) through this transition, AFS established the System Approach for Safety Oversight (SASO) Program Office (AFS-30) to develop and implement a comprehensive system safety approach to the oversight of all aviation entities.
The goal of the SASO PO is unlike many other major programs, in that it is not solely characterized by the procurement of hardware, software, telecommunication capabilities, or other physical assets. Instead the focus is to evaluate and potentially reengineer existing AFS business processes to incorporate system safety practices, and ensure that business process changes are facilitated by the transfer of knowledge, skills, tools, processes, systems, and methods for all stakeholders involved in the changes.
