Friday, November 25, 2011

Six Rules for Failure?

Here are unspoken managerial safety problems. I call them:

"Miller's Six Rules to Fail-While-Complying"

1. Many companies are run by managers who do not know their own industry well. In commercial aviation many managers are not line pilots. Many managers do not come from the ranks of the company's own line holders.

2. They will act as if they are trying to comply with any program placed on them by their superiors. Their work is to comply with a regulator or industry inspector, and not necessarily make their own company operation safer.

3. But they will not embrace the spirit of these regulatory programs.

4. They will not adapt these programs to be effective for their own local operation

5. They will not innovate new programs that will work for them.

6. They will suppress any person in their organization that attempts, suggests or recommends safety innovation that falls outside of the letter of the regulation or law governing their operations.

So ICAO, FAA and other government regulators can recommend or require all types of safety programs, but were not many of these programs recommended by safety organizations and safety pioneers more than 20 years ago and longer in the case of many safety programs? So, how effective are regulators themselves at being the global advocate for commercial aviation safety?
So in my opinion, if the local organization does not do everything to help themselves, are they not more or less likely to fail?

As I read the papers, watch the news, I regularly observe regulators, major airlines and aircraft manufacturers adhering to some or all of the six rules for failure?

Examples? Crew fatigue.