What is gap analysis as it relates to Safety Management Systems and is it import

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What is gap analysis as it relates to Safety Management Systems and is it important?

Gap analysis, in the context of Safety Management Systems (SMS), involves comparing the SMS in place in an organization with the requirements of a specified safety management system (e.g. OSHA) to identify the areas of non-compliance i.e. gaps. The managers can use the gaps to plan what is required to be implemented in the safety management system. If the organization is trying to get certified to BS OHSAS 18001 it may get this initial status review or gap analysis as part of your first visit by the accredited auditor. Then it becomes a check of readiness as it relates to adopting the formal system. The auditors provide the management, details about the items that need to be fixed (the gaps) before it has a formal certification visit. The nature of gaps may roam around the following aspects of SMS - how identification of legal requirements are done and what the organizations can do about them, how the hazards and risks are identified and evaluated, performance of any initiatives the organization has for improving health and safety in the workplace, how investigations of incidents, work-related ill-health, accidents, and emergencies are made and how a lesson is learned.

Explain how conducting this gap analysis might have changed the organizational structure at NASA leading up to the Space Shuttle Columbia accident.

There exists more than one cause related to this particular accident but we will only focus on the structural part of it. The organizational system contributing to these accidents was the structural secrecy in which the organization structure concealed the seriousness of the problems from the stakeholders. Had the company been focused on the gap analysis of the existing organization system, it could have proactively developed a formal, adversarial, open-to-all structure devised to vet all engineering risk assessments prior to launch, called a cessation to flying with these anomalies. Two examples of gap analysis can be cited - One could have identified the gap between the actual signal received vs. that passed through the hierarchy as a proactive check to conclude the fallacy in the system. Additionally, the effect of personnel cuts and too much reliance on the independent contractors could be found through proactive gap analysis on the safety management system.

Explanation / Answer

What is gap analysis as it relates to Safety Management Systems and is it important? Explain how conducting this gap analysis might have changed the organizational structure at NASA leading up to the Space Shuttle Columbia accident and provide two gap analysis examples. (300 words minimum) Thanks so much, your help is so much appreciated!

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