Stepping up to management

The differences, for example, between NSW (who take a highly prescriptive, policing-heavy approach to many regulations), and South Australia (who often take a more outcome oriented approach) is palpable when considering how a company might comply with different regulations. These differences are exacerbated by differing thresholds for various actions such as appointment and training of OH&S reps (e.g. NSW is different), carriage of insurance (only mandatory in some States), licencing (different in every State for chemicals) and even different buffers required from dwellings for chemical application between each State and with the CASA regulations.

Pulling together OH&S, flying safety, chemical stewardship, logistics, human resources and business regulations into a single program was a challenge, but one that has produced a significant range of additional benefits.

By successfully developing a single management approach to all of these issues, AAMS delivers a powerful tool to business owners that is flexible enough to cover future regulations, broad enough to cover existing regulations, and which allows managers to retain a focus on the real priority of the business – creating an appropriate return on investment for the owners.

The real power of AAMS is not that it provides a structure and system to ensure the business runs smoothly and is compliant – it does that as well. The real power is that it frees up the business owners/manager to focus on their business and it makes continuous improvement a practical everyday activity.

As Michael Gerber of “E Myth” fame says – it allows people to work on their business, not just in their business.

AAMS features a safety management system that covers flying ops, OH&S and hazardous substances. It also features a quality assurance system that provides peace-of-mind to clients and is based on building trust with the very people that make the business profitable.

At the heart of AAMS is a risk identification, assessment and control system that engages all staff in the business, as well as providing the essential transparency that regulators want.

This is backed up by templates providing a policy and procedure base for all elements of an aerial application business – or for that matter, any aviation business.

To keep things as simple as possible, AAMS has been moulded around existing sound business and safety practices and consequently the changes visible to staff will probably not be of the ‘earthshaking’ variety. For example, for pilots there will be one additional check to be signed off, and for mixers there will be a checklist and decontamination register to complete. All get to participate in the safety and quality system. The difference will be that this completes a transparency trail that most companies have started – but only have in part.

AAAA has already been in discussions with a range of regulators and is confident that the AAMS program will come to be recognised as the marque of an aerial application business that is serious about safety and quality and has the systems to back it up.

As part of signing on to AAMS, AAAA provides four days of training, as well as full support for the program via an AAMS Manager who is also tasked with keeping participating companies up to speed with regulatory changes, best practice and appropriate responses to other challenges.

AAAA is also considering the wider market for AAMS – especially in aviation – where companies are challenged by the regulatory burden, but don’t know where to turn for support.

Over fifteen companies have already indicated they will be taking up the AAMS program over the coming months, and this augers well for a new and very positive era for aerial application.