To be updated with the EASA regulations can be quite complicated if you don’t have the right tools and information. The problem faced by the aviation quality and compliance monitoring manager in any organization from the aviation field, in order to guarantee and perform a good job in the conformity control, is that he or she needs to know exactly which are the legal requirements that affect the organization and specifically those closely related with the aviation field like the operation, maintenance, and licensing requirements among others.
Unlike in other sectors, to be updated with the regulations in the aviation field is very difficult, because it is a very dynamic sector with frequent regulation changes, and it is also highly regulated.
What most Aviation quality and compliance monitoring managers do is to monitor the websites of the aeronautical authorities and review which new requirements and regulations have come out or have changed. Some of the sites they usually consult are EASA, Eur-lex, ICAO webpages, or those belonging to the national authorities of the country where they are operating.
The websites from the aviation authorities usually publish the regulations without much further analysis for the reader. They use a document management system for the download of the regulations without offering anything else.
The companies in the aviation sector need an efficient way of being updated with the aviation regulations. Some of the problems they find when looking for the information to be updated are:
- The search of the information turns out to be complex because many times it requires multiple searches and to start “pulling the thread”, which means seeing where the new findings lead you to. Wouldn’t it be great to have all the information organized, segmented and ready to be used?
- When performing searches in the websites of the aviation authorities, there is no trail of the prior consultations, nor of the information that has already been downloaded and analyzed. They are not able to know in a simple way if there is any new or modified requirement in the regulations.
- There is much noise and information that is not relevant. Many times, a consultation leads to an overflow of results, that can overwhelm or mislead the responsible of quality and compliance monitoring within an organization of the sector.
- It is hard to have enough time to be updated with the EASA regulations that affect us them. They must take into account that the resources are always limited and in the aeronautical businesses even more. The job of the aviation quality and compliance monitoring manager in an aeronautical organization can be full of difficulties, as having to analyze the regulations, to know if there is a new regulation or a previous one that has been modified and to include them its quality and compliance monitoring system, which means including them in their audits and inspections. The truth is that many working hours are needed and there is not always enough time. Usually, the department of quality and compliance monitoring of an average air operator does not have enough personnel. Furthermore, it is hard to ensure that all the staff working in this department and the auditors are informed and conscious of the changes in order to, among other tasks, update the audit’s checklist.
How often are there changes in air regulations?
Approximately every month there are four or five changes in the EASA regulations that can affect the quality and compliance monitoring department of an air operator, so the information should be accurate, appropriate, relevant, and easily understandable and applicable.
Are the changes in the regulations, modifications or new regulations?
Both. Aviation is a very vibrant sector. It changes a lot because it is a very competitive market where new technologies are applied, so there always has to be new regulations. For example, the greater use of drones implies a lot of new regulations that have to be taken into account.
Many of the changes depend on the sector. For example, the changes for air operators are different than those for training organizations, as they use different regulations.
There are tools for the quality and compliance monitoring management in the aviation sector like SICOMO, a web environment solution that is being constantly updated with the regulations and shows the information organized by regulation modules, so everything can be easily found. This tool reviews the regulations to which the organization is subscribed every day, keeping it updated and segmented so that the organization can easily access the information via the web. In addition to this, the quality and compliance monitoring manager can receive notifications in his or her e-mail inbox every time a new regulation enters into force and a previous analysis to know if it affects its organization or not can be performed, to know if it requires an audit.
The best part of this tool is that the process is done automatically through notices. New checklists are being generated for future audits, taking the requirements from new regulations into account.
Incomplete information can lead to an erroneous decision making or to the non-compliance of the regulations. Tools like SICOMO help the departments of quality and compliance monitoring to be updated with information about the regulations of interest in a style, format, and detail that is compatible with the needs of the organization to comply with the regulations.
If you are interested in how to be updated with the air regulations for EASA and IOSA, subscribe to our EASA Quality Compliance newsletter where you will find information about new technologies and tools for:
- The appropriate management of the regulations.
- The management of audits and inspections.
- The management of nonconformities.
- The implementation and follow-up of performance indicators.
