The transition to a Safety Management System (SMS) approach to aviation safety has been well underway since 2002 and is now mandatory for all states and aviation service providers. SCSI has been in the forefront of teaching SMS commencing in 2002. The SCSI SMS courses and certificate program has been developed and refined during these SMS transitional years to keep pace with SMS developments. From Canada, Australia and the UK, SMS has now been incorporated by ICAO into its recommended guidelines (doc 9859 Safety Management Manual 2nd edition 2008). The SCSI SMS course and certificate program is constantly reviewed and updated by SCSI SMS experts to provide you with state-of-the-art information about SMS as well as lessons learned in implementing SMS during these transitional years.

For those of you more familiar with the term "Safety Program Management," please note that SMS is characterized by some as a traditional safety program refined, enhanced, built upon, and integrated completely into an organization. In fact, SMS encompasses everything in a traditional safety program management course plus a whole lot more. If you do what we teach you to do, you will have a cutting edge program in SMS.

In the 1990’s the term “organizational accident” emerged in formal recognition that most of the factors that lead to accidents are under the control of the organization rather than “individuals”. Since the greatest threats to aviation safety are embedded within organizations, preventing accidents requires organizational action. Safety Management Systems (SMS) represents a systems approach to safety management in organizations. The need for a systems approach to aviation safety has been recognized for some time.

SMS is a systematic, explicit, and comprehensive approach to reducing threats to aviation safety embedded in organizations. It provides for goal setting, planning, and measuring performance in an organizational context. It integrates operations and technical systems with financial and human resources. SMS is woven into the fabric of an organization. It concerns itself with organizational safety. Properly understood and implemented it becomes a part of the organizational culture, the way people do their jobs.

SMS provides an organization with the ability to anticipate and address safety issues before they lead to an incident or accident. An SMS can reduce losses and improve productivity. A key feature of an SMS is that it holds line managers accountable for safety related action or inaction compared to a traditional approach to safety which relegated responsibility for safety to a staff position.

Those who take this certificate program will become change agents in their organizations. They will be able to facilitate an organizational transition from a traditional safety approach to SMS. In effect, this will transition safety from a staff function to a direct line responsibility. They will help foster an organizational climate where safety is a core value.

SCSI SMS expert instructors, who have actually worked implementing SMS in organizations, have created and constantly update our SMS certificate program. Based on student feedback over the past six years and experience and lessons learned in implementing SMS in airlines both large and small, as well as incorporating the newest guidelines published by ICAO and regulatory agencies such as Transport Canada and the FAA, the SMS certificate program now consists of the following courses:

Required Courses

• Safety Management Systems Complete (SMS-C). This course presents and discusses the organizational components of an SMS and the SMS Risk Control Process to safety professionals who may know nothing about Safety Management Systems, or those who may simply want to review their SMS and make sure all the pieces are in place. Toward that end, the course shows attendees how to do a "Gaps Analysis" which focuses on how to discover any Gaps in your current SMS and Risk Control Process.


• Investigation in Safety Management Systems (ISMS). This course provides Safety Officers and managers with knowledge and training in the process of investigating minor accidents and incidents in an aviation organization. It supports the implementation of an SMS by providing the tools and techniques used to investigate incidents, minor accidents and hazards. There is also practical training in how to investigate an occurrence from initial notification through to writing an investigation report.


• Organizational Change Workshop (OCW). This course focuses on the human and organizational factors (organizational behavior, communication, change, climate and culture) in creating, transitioning to or implementing an SMS. Topics include the well known ways people resist change, and ways to successfully overcome resistance to change.


• Operational Risk Management (ORM). This course focuses on the Risk Control Process and teaches safety professionals "management talk" and how to "make the business case for SMS" to managers at all levels. The course also cover the critical task of operational risk profiling and how risk profiling integrates with SMS.

Any 2 electives from this list

• Accident Prevention Through Safety Recommendations (RECS). [1 week course] This course covers all aspects of developing and responding to safety recommendations. Students will learn how to identify safety problems that need correcting, and when to make recommendations. Some safety problems uncovered during an investigation require urgent consideration and immediate action to avoid a similar accident, while others can wait for the completion of the investigation. The course will cover the role of parties in recommendation development and look at the process from the perspective of the eventual recipient of the recommendations. Not only does this course cover recommendations that result from investigations conducted by official government accident investigation agencies (such as the NTSB in the U.S.), it also covers recommendations that come from incident and accident investigations conducted by government regulatory agencies (such as the FAA) and by industry investigators (such as airlines or airplane manufacturers) reviewing problems in their own operations and procedures. In this sense safety recommendations can be looked upon as the most important accident prevention tool.


• Crew Resource Management (CRM). [3 day course] This course is designed to cover basic CRM philosophy as applied to groups of individuals interacting as teams, as well as, the intra-personal issues of the individuals themselves. The course will take the student from the initial CRM strategies of the 1980s and 1990s, through present day generations. This training is based on experiential learning through a series of interactive exercises which encourage class participation. This course can also be used to train-the-trainer and is available on-site or on the web through distance learning (either self paced or "live" in a virtual classroom". Follow on site visits can be arranged to monitor implementation and progress.


• Human Error and Accident Prevention (HEAP). [1 week course] To help your organization achieve the goal of “managing” human error, SCSI’s latest workshop, HEAP, addresses this critical task. HEAP is a practical, case-study-based human factors course that focuses on understanding the causal chain and then how to develop and implement effective mitigation and prevention strategies.


• Human Factors in Aviation Maintenance (HFAM). [24 hour course] This course contributes to the Safety Management Systems program by providing dynamic and focused human factors training in aviation maintenance to the civilian and military aviation maintenance workplace. The course design parallels the maintenance human factors course SCSI provided to FAA aviation safety inspectors which the FAA designated an FAA-accepted training course.


• Human Factors in Maintenance Operations (HFMO). [1 week course] This course, designed by Gary Hook, focuses on the identification and management of the human factors that are encountered in all aspects of aircraft maintenance operations. The course features presentations, interactive discussions, workshops, and data management procedures.


• Ramp and Maintenance Safety (RMS). [1 week course] This course contributes to the Safety Management Systems Certificate Program by providing best safety practices for ramp and maintenance operations. Compliance with occupational safety requirements, maintenance resource management, and data collection and utilization are incorporated. The role of ramp and maintenance safety in establishing safety goals, a safety culture, audits and risk management are presented.


• Practical System Safety (PSS). [1 week course] This course contributes to the Safety Management Systems Certificate Program by providing an in-depth review of tools and techniques used to evaluate operations, facilities, equipment, and life cycle activities as part of the risk management, safety audits and assessments, and hazard identification features of SMS. Tools presented include fault tree analysis, critical incident analysis, zonal analysis, and job hazard analysis.

The SCSI Safety Management Systems Certificate Program consists of six courses – four required and two electives.

Once a participant has completed the four required courses plus the two electives, SCSI will award the Certificate in Safety Management Systems which will list the actual courses taken and acknowledge your achievement.

SCSI will accept equivalent military or commercial courses from another provider on a case by case basis provided they integrate suitably with the SCSI approach. The SCSI instructional staff will evaluate requests for transfer of credit and a final decision will be made by the Dean of Training. SCSI will normally only recognize courses completed towards the certificate if they were taken within five years of the certificate date. Anyone wishing to apply for such credit should mail proof of completion (certificate or transcript) along with the category to be substituted, to SCSI.

Individuals who started SCSI certificate courses under prior certificate program course requirements will be permitted to decide whether to complete their certificate program under either the former or current certificate requirements.