Re: Risk Management
CharlieRU_at_aol.com
Tue, 25 Feb 1997 00:32:22 -0500 (EST)
Bart,
Read you message. Wow, stressing out about this ORM thing ? I see lots of
folks jumping up and down about ORM and hand wringing..."what are we going to
do?" Let me do a download on what "little" I know about ORM, both from
experience and observation as well as the source of the ORM AFI (Air Force
Instruction).
Seems some year ago the US Army was getting concern about their accident
rate. They developed a program called Organizational Risk Management which
leaned heavily on what other folks were doing in CRM circles. The Army
"discovered" in ORM that if you encouraged gunners to call out obstacles to
the pilot things went better and if you pre-planned landing zones landing
zones were safer. A retired CWO Army chopper pilot told me that it used to
be that the pilot did his thing and the other crew members did their thing..
. but on his birds he had his crew talking to each other. He did retire.
Anyway, some of what the Army discovered was much like what other services
had been doing for sometime. The Air Crew thing of working together,
overcoming rank, senority and the other barriers to crew effectiveness. The
results were as predicted: remarkable. Accidents were dropping nicely. Air
Force heard about all of this and had to have the program if it would produce
similar results.
We now have ORM but in a different light. Mission planning and real risk
identification and assessment. The approach is to really look at what needs
to be accomplished before you get there instead of winging a half baked
scheme when you're out of options and over the target zone. Something like
that. Good ORM to me is really an illumination of all of those factors
people DID in planning a mission but never really talked about but just keep
in their back pocket. Once in awhile the back pocket trick did'nt work and
things got bent. Now, the concept is to identify those things, talk about
them, plan for them and fly a successful mission. I see no real alteration
in basic crew management coming from ORM. It appears to me to be yet another
healthy step in the right direction for aviation. In a simpler way it's
making sure you have the right tools, the right equipment and the right
people to to the job. We all know how our confidence drops when the plumber
has to go to the hardware store to get a pipe wrench while we stand knee deep
in .... awaiting his return. Not a very effective plumber because he did'nt
practice ORM. Now I may be wrong and full of it but I'm just offering my
perception..let's hear from others.
God, I love synergy.
Have Fun Fly Safe
Charlie Russell
DUAL Incorporated