Control Engineering Approach in Safety Management Systems

Safety Management Systems (SMS) are mainly based on an operational feedback approach for continuous safety enhancement. Closed loop approaches have been dramatically developed and applied in aeronautics by control engineers. In this article, SMS is redefined in terms of automatic control and this analogy leads to the identification of three classical feedback strategies. The theoretical effect of these strategies on performances is also discussed. As in any closed loop systems, the importance of understanding how the mission stakeholders react will be found to be particularly crucial. The last aspect of this analogy is discussed through quantitative SMS, or the standard use of SMS indicators. Several aspects of decision making and quantitative analysis are then discussed.