MITIGATING RISK
Canadians make daily choices about risk and how to manage it. For example, deciding how to cross a busy street involves risk management. Our parents taught us to cross at intersections and to look both ways before stepping off the curb. This simple risk management technique has been used for decades to reduce risks associated with street traffic. Many of us have taught this to our own children so they can be allowed to visit a friend on the next block.
Managing Risk
Risk management is about trying to reduce the likelihood of a negative event happening, or minimizing its consequences. In civil aviation, the term is used in the context of decision-making about how to handle situations that affect aviation safety. Effective risk management seeks to maximize the benefits of an activity while minimizing the associated risks. Risk management is the process of identifying risks, assessing their implications, deciding on a course of action, and evaluating the results.
Throughout government, departments have set levels of financial and human resources to accomplish many goals and use risk management as an important decision-making tool. The element of risk plays a role in decisions made by civil aviation professionals. The successful development of civil aviation in Canada is about managing that risk – continually gaining knowledge through past experience and establishing the most effective mitigation methods. While risk is inherent in everything we do, we can use proven techniques to ensure that all aspects of the risk are identified and considered when making decisions.
Assessing Risk
Transport Canada’s aviation professionals face a variety of situations every day and they have the responsibility to make decisions based on the principles of risk assessment and management. Situations can range from an inspector’s immediate “go/no-go” decision while an aircraft manoeuvres for take-off, to an aviation specialist’s long-term risk assessment, based on review, analysis, policy development, procedures and regulations.
A Risk-Based Approach
Once the most important areas of safety are identified, civil aviation staff conduct ongoing assessments of the risk associated with them. Decisions are then made regarding the degree of regulatory intervention required at any given time.
Risk management involves three distinct activities:
Risk Identification
The main method for identifying risk is gathering as much information as possible. The following types of tasks are involved in risk identification:
- review case history;
- prepare risk scenarios;
- develop theories, test against historical data and assess the likelihood of the scenarios’
occurrence;
- seek expert knowledge;
- rely on intuition; and
- use standard industry tools for a more sophisticated form of risk identification.
The scope of risk identification identifies system-wide hazards and risks associated with the following elements:
- Human — including personnel selection, qualifications, training and demographics
- Non-human — including hardware and software
- Environmental — including physical and social
- Managerial — including financial and human resource policies, visions, goals and strategies
Risk Evaluation
Once identified, the risk must be evaluated. There are two key components in risk evaluation – severity of the risk and probability of occurrence.
Severity of risk can be ranked as the following events:
- Catastrophic – loss of life
- Critical – major injury or property loss
- Marginal – minor injury or property loss
- Nil – no harm
Probability of occurrence must be determined or predicted once the severity of a risk is understood. This is done through the:
- review of historical data to determine the frequency with which the event has occurred and then the calculation of the likelihood of its reoccurrence or ;
- breakdown of an event into its component parts to estimate the probability of each of these elements coming together.
Risk Control
After severity and probability are determined, control measures need to be introduced. If the system can tolerate or absorb the specified risk, this step may not be necessary. Specialists identify and evaluate risks and verify the existence and effectiveness of control measures through the following:
- monitoring service provider operations;
- ensuring that results are consistent with the intent of the control measure;
- verifying that measures controlling inherent risks are permanently part of the service provider’s operation; and
- verifying if control measures create new risks and, if they do, making sure they are also addressed.
If controls do not exist, or are found to be inadequate, steps are taken to determine the most appropriate action. These can range from developing effective controls with the service provider to introducing new regulations and standards, or both.
Safety is Priority
Transport Canada’s comprehensive civil aviation safety program consists of certification; training and licensing; monitoring; enforcement; awareness and promotion; and partnerships. These activities, combined with risk analysis, through which the department refocuses its resources by adjusting safety priorities, play an important role in the protection of the travelling public.
Transport Canada is committed to making prudent safety-related decisions. The ability to manage risk in a consistent and effective manner is an important part of civil aviation service delivery and safety monitoring.
Mai 2006
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