The workshop took place on 05 March 2009 at EUROCONTROL in Brussels. CIS team was the major contributor to the SMS Cost Model Workshop. Our team presented such a developed SMS Cost Model and its prototype. Cost modelling aims to reveal the interdependencies within a business process and serve as a management tool for improving the respective process. The SMS Cost Model itself and its prototype were accepted very well by the forum participants.

The purpose of the SMS cost modelling project and the performed pilot validation of the cost model is to assess the feasibility of collecting pertinent data and estimating the cost incurred for the development, implementation, day-to-day operations, and maintenance of a Safety Management System by an air navigation service provider.

According to ESARR 3, the scope of a Safety Management System shall cover all ATM and support services under the service provider’s managerial control. Today, only partial information is available about the actual costs induced by the development, implementation, and maintenance of a Safety Management System, including the costs of resources devoted to safety management activities. These activities are described in detail in the EUROCONTROL Generic Safety Management Manual.

The scope of the Safety Management System used for the modelling purpose has been set to encompass all safety management procedures, processes and organisational arrangements needed to achieve full compliance with ESARR 3 and EC Regulation 2096/2005 requirements.

Initial validation of the Safety Management System cost model has been performed with the support of a medium-size ANSP that serves between 500,000 and 1,000,000 IFR flights per annum. The pilot validation carried out with an ANSP demonstrated that:

• The model can be used to establish the full cost of the SMS of an ANSP, including hidden and variable cost taking into account inflation and an annual increase of staff remuneration;
• The model can be used to establish the cost of the various SMS procedures and processes developed at a different level of maturity;
• The model can provide an indication about the level of maturity of the SMS procedures and processes deployed by a service provider;
• The model provides for the establishment of SMS costs at different levels of granularity. The more detailed data is provided, the more accurate will be the cost estimation;
• The hidden costs of SMS implementation and operation are considerable. Such costs are generated by participating a significant number of operational and engineering staff in relatively short training and awareness sessions for the respective safety procedures. The training sessions generate human effort expenses and expenses for the venue and training equipment used.