SERVICES | SMS
SMS program. “Certainly, initially, there
is an added expense burden as you spool
things up,” noted Tom Roche. “But our
business is all about driving operating costs
down for the operator.” Noting the company’s investment in the eight-hour employee
training program, Roche emphasized that
the importance the company places on
SMS is extremely high. “It’s what we do.
It’s our business, our brand. It’s what we
deliver day in and day out.”
Feedback
Roche added that some of the improve-
ments StandardAero is encountering are
opportunities to extend the life of certain
products or develop repairs based on the
collective awareness of its highly experi-
enced people. He noted that StandardAero
employees “have many, many years of
experience looking at the materials in the
engines after they have been run though
TBO (time before overhaul),” said Roche.
With SMS, StandardAero has found they
are identifying or highlighting areas in
which recommendations can be made
through customer service and engineering
teams back to the customer. “Its not just an
opportunity for us to provide flight safety
awareness,” observed Roche. “It’s also an
opportunity for us to provide feedback to
the operator on opportunities they can
implement to help reduce costs on their
engine when it does come to us.”
With the implementation of their SMS,
StandardAero looks with an eye to improv-
ing operations. “Something simple like the
way someone is doing their job or develop-
ing a new technique” is always getting fresh
look, says Roche. “It doesn’t always have
to be focused on a flight safety issue, but,
certainly, it is the same tool. It’s the same
mindset … making sure that overall, you
are doing something better tomorrow than
you did today.”
In the helicopter world, StandardAero
predominantly services the Rolls-Royce
250 turbine engine, although it does have a
small Turbomeca operation in Singapore.
The SMS concept has been rolled out
throughout the entire organization. “SMS
has had a big effect on how people think
and how people approach their jobs on a
daily basis,” said Roche with a focus on his
helicopter operations. “We had bits of the
SMS system in our culture anyway, but
this has really cemented a lot of things.” He
noted that SMS has really opened up the
opportunity for people to provide insights
and speak up when they don’t think some-
thing is going the way it should.
StandardAero has coordinated two
separate groups within the helicopter orga-
nization related to SMS—the Continuous
Improvement Council and the Flight
Safety Review Board. “The CI Council
is where the management team reviews
CI projects on a weekly basis and the
people responsible for the projects brief
us on their progress,” said Roche. “They
tell us what they are doing and we provide
approvals for funding and what not.”
“The Flight Safety Revie w Board (FSRB)
is focused on anything in our organization,
or in our customer’s world, that is in any
way, shape or form related to flight safety,”
said Roche. “It could be an in-flight shut-
down or some reported incident from a
StandardAero has implemented SMS across
all lines and all facilities. Shown here is one of
StandardAero’s helicopter engine lines.
customer, or it could be something that’s
happened within our own facility.”
The FSRB is an internal group that
is outwardly focused. “We are not only
interested in what is going on in our own
organization, but we are also interested
in what’s going in the operator’s world,”
said Roche, noting that StandardAero
has a Customer Council with large fleet
customer representatives participating. “It
helps us to know what’s driving them to
do certain things that affect not only their
own operation, but the product as it comes
back to us.”
Both Dodd and Roche were proud
that StandardAero’s whole continuous
improvement model has built in some of
the primary elements of their organization
with turn-around time and due-date com-
pliances among the company guarantees
that benefit. “We focus very heavily on
maintaining or enhancing the customer’s
experience through the whole continuous
process,” said Roche. “SMS certainly has
not had a negative impact on turn-time.”
StandardAero feels the tools behind SMS
provide an opportunity for them to make
sure that the customer receives much bet-
ter product.
Open Reporting Culture
Regarding the implementation of an open
culture, one of the fundamental tenets of a
successful SMS program, Dodd was forthright. “I want to point out, first of all, that we
have a very, very open culture. We encourage the employees to document their ideas.
If they feel that there may be an issue with
a supervisor or with the culture, they can
leave it unsigned and hand the idea off to
either a supervisor in Tom’s organization
or to an on-site quality inspector, chief
inspector or accountable manager.” If these
reports need to be non-disclosed from an
employee point of view, they are allowed to
go through that route.
Does the emphasis on self-reporting
and just culture tend to dilute the need
for individuals to be responsible for their
actions? “No,” replied Dodd. “One of the
things we did in training was to emphasize
that this is not a get-out-of-jail card. We
