United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

Air transport has shown remarkable growth and development in the past 50 years since the first powered flight in 1903. In the past 10 years, passenger transport volume grew an average of 4.2% per year while cargo transport grew 6.1% every year. In 2005 alone, 1.9 billion passengers and 38 million tons of cargo were transported by air. It clearly shows that air transport has been recognized as the fastest and most convenient mode of transport in the global village and driving force behind world’s economic development.

With increases in exchanges and movements between countries, it is expected that such growing trends will continue in the future. To support sound development of civil aviation, it is essential to ensure safety in the aviation system.

The basic pillar of ensuring aviation safety is that all the States comply with the minimum safety requirements set by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), so-called Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) that is developed as Annexes to the Convention on International Civil Aviation for safe and orderly development of international civil aviation.

Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) of Ministry of Construction and Transportation(MOCT) of the Republic of Korea (ROK) has been striving to enhance aviation safety by implementing the SARPs into domestic regulations. However, it has encountered lots of difficulties in managing compliance with SARPs in a systemic and efficient manner due to the volume of SARPs, their constant amandments, and lack of expertise required to appropriately reflect them into national regulations. Continued efforts to overcome the hurdles finally succeeded in developing SMIS.

※ SMIS(SARPs Management & Implementation System) is a computer based management system to enable civil aviation authorities to manage timely compliance with the SARPs, identify the items requiring improvements, and monitor progress on a real-time basis

Initially, the SMIS was developed simply for implementation of SARPs in preparation for ICAO Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP). However, with active participation of CASA personnel, it evolved into a useful tool to improve efficiency, accountability, and transprancy of work. Furthermore, having verified high user satisfaction and its positive effect, CASA decided to provide the SMIS at no charge to all interested countries around the world, contributing to enhancing global aviation safety.

In light of the fact that thousands of aircraft cross borders of many countries around the world every day, ROK is well aware that aviation safety cannot be achieved through the efforts of a single country alone, thus cooperation of international community is essential.

As a country that is somewhere in between developed and developing countries and as the 8th largest air transport country in the world, ROK would like to share its experiences and know-how with other countries that are undergoing similar difficulties that Korea had.

CASA’s motivation in applying for United Nations Public Service Award is not just to win the award, but also to utilize it as an opportunity for drawing attention of the world to aviation safety and the SMIS, which will help make the sky even safer for all the citizens of the world.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
SMIS was originally developed as a tool to manage compliance with SARPs in preparation for ICAO USOAP. However, it resulted in a total reform of overall work system and ended up with being a sustainable and essential tool for Civil Aviation Authorities. As a result of the reform in work process through the use of SMIS, we have experienced the following achievements. First, SMIS has facilitated sharing of aviation safety information and made the process for all the amendments of regulations transparent. In the past, only the persons concerned were aware of their safety related tasks, but now anyone interested can refer to the status of compliance with the SARPs in all the safety related fields, not just limited to the scope of their own work. SMIS also has increased the reliability and accountability of aviation safety work. Persons in charge, who are clearly named, are assigned to each SARP and its related tasks with a due date. All safety related measures that are undertaken are recorded in the database, facilitating the verification and use of past materials/records. Moreover, SMIS allows new or amended SARPs to be immediately reflected in the national regulations, thus permitting timely implementation of the international standards. Such responsiveness is very important to keep up with the rapid changes in aviation industry and application of new technologies.. Thanks to SMIS, the number of non-conformances to the SARPs was decreased from 1,139 to 35 cases, ultimately leading to improvements in aviation safety. In addition, changes to database management means that the task of analyzing SAPRs will not require 103 staff repetitively who were involved in the process of the development of the SMIS for 15 months. Based on experiences in Korea, it was deemed that SMIS would be also beneficial to the international aviation community. Therefore SMIS was introduced to international aviation community and, as expected, it was noted with great interest by ICAO and aviation authorities of the world. In response to such a great interest of international community, CASA decided to share the benefits of the SMIS use to avoid duplication of effort by those that have common concerns and to contribute to the enhancement of global aviation safety. Following the introduction of SMIS at various international conferences and meetings, CASA has been requested by many ICAO member States to provide further information and demonstration of the SMIS. At present, CASA has provided the SMIS package to 11 States/Administrations (Panama, Cuba, Equator, Brunei, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Hong-Kong, China, Jamaica), 2(China and Jamaica) of which have already signed the MOU for the continued cooperation. It is expected that successful establishment of SMIS in the international civil aviation community would provide greater benefits for underdeveloped countries that may lack systematic aviation safety management. Of note, assistance in establishing IT infrastructure required to operate the SMIS in developing countries will make an even greater contribution to aviation safety, in that the State may make use of it for other safety related tasks.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
 Apr. 2004 – July 2005: Analyzed SARPs and national regulations provision by provision  Dec. 2005: Built SMIS and began operating it in aviation safety management tasks  Mar. 2006: Introduced the concept of systems based aviation safety management to the international civil aviation society (Global Directors General of Civil Aviation Conference in Montreal, Canada)  Apr. 2006: Developed Operational Standard for SMIS use (Directive No. 91) and instituted the operation of SMIS  Aug. 2006: Decided SMIS delivery method at COSCAP-NA (member states: Republic of Korea, People’s Republic of China, Mongolia, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea)  Sept. 2006: Completed development of SMIS Basic Version to be delivered to other countries  Sept. 2006: SMIS Basic Version delivered to China (Beijing) along with technical support  Oct. 2006: Completed development of SMIS Package Version with freeware operational environment  Oct. 2006: Introduced SMIS to Regional Aviation Safety Oversight System (RASOS),13 member States and territories  Oct. 2006: Delivered SMIS Package Version to RASOS’s chair country Jamaica  Nov. 2006: Held technical consultations in Montreal, Canada, for interfacing SMIS with ICAO’s USOAP Database  Nov. 2006: Introduced SMIS to 23 Latin American Civil Aviation Commission(LACAC) member States in Panama  Nov. 2006: Introduced SMIS to 7 COSCAP-SA member states in Katmandu, Nepal  Dec. 2006: Introduced SMIS to 36 Asia-Pacific Countries at the DGCA Conference in Indonesia  Dec. 2006: Provided the SMIS package to 9 States in response to their request  Jan. 2007: Demonstrate SMIS and decide to adapt the SMIS for common use of RASOS member States at its Board Meeting (Planned)  Mar. 2007: Introduce SMIS to EASA and AFCAC member states (Planned)  Jun. 2007: Interface SMIS with ICAO USOAP Database (Planned)  Sept. 2007: Build international network on aviation safety management and implementation by completing interface between SMIS and ICAO USOAP database (Planned)  Dec. 2007: Complete delivery of SMIS free of charge to all interested ICAO member states along with technical support

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
Republic of Korea experienced considerable difficulty in determining which SARPs provisions were in conformance with the international safety standards. The reasons for this were the large dependence on the person in charge who reviews and determines the compliance with international standards and absence of an appropriate method for validating the results of the review. In other words, there was no mechanism for identifying deficiencies and taking corrective measures. Such problem resulted in the Republic of Korea being identified as a country that has 20.21% of lack of implementation of SARPs in the ICAO USOAP in 2000. As a national measure to resolve this concern, the civil aviation authority was expanded to establish CASA within MOCT. And efforts were made to meet international standards and at the same time to eliminate regulations that were more stringent than the international standards. However, lack of proper tools for supporting this effort was a significant obstacle in the process. The chief manager’s efforts to confirm non-compliance and excessively strict regulations could not lead to producing the planned outcomes, as there was no way to monitor compliance with international standards that are constantly being amended. Lack of clarity in the responsible persons/offices for each and every provision of SARPs was another obstacle to produce satisfactory progress with the required improvements. Hence, CASA came up with an idea of developing a sustainable and reliable tool to monitor and control the complete process of implementing current as well as new or amended SARPs.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
To develop such a tool as a solution to all the difficulties and further contribute to enhancement of world’s aviation safety, reforms were carried out as follows: First, thoroughly review and compare overall SARPs (more than 10,000 provisions) and their corresponding national regulations. It is for the purpose of identifying current status of compliance with SARPS and deficiencies that requires corrective actions, based on which new or amended SARPs can be followed up. Second, establish the analysis results in a database system which will allow one to continuously update the status of compliance, to develop an action plan with clear accountabilities, and to monitor and control the progress of improvements. Third, align fundamental reformation of work process taking advantage of the database system in order to reduce the responsible staff’s workload and increase transparency of the administration Fourth, share the benefits of experience and know-how with international aviation community at no charge to avoid duplication of effort by civil aviation authorities who all have the common goal of enhancing aviation safety and ultimately contribute to world aviation safety.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
In the first stage, the development of the SMIS started with provision-by-provision analysis of the SARPs and comparison with national. To complete this task with higher reliability of the outcomes, the teams were divided into many different groups for crosscheck. Also, domestic and international experts from external organizations were invited to participate in the project for validation of the outcomes. In the second stage, the results from the first stage were established in a database system, which could be continuously updated to keep up with constant amendments of the SARPs. Moreover, in pursuit of practicability and sustainability of the system within the organization, the development of the system was aligned with fundamental reform in work process to manage compliance with the SARPs. Therefore CASA improved the database system as an efficient tool, named as the SMIS, for systematic, reliable, and transparent management of aviation safety related duties. SMIS requires smooth and efficient communication with ICAO, the main source of initiatives for changes in SARPs. The feature of assigning clear lines of accountability in will ensure reliability in the work as well as to manage the performance of the individuals in the organization Furthermore, SMIS provides information on progress being made based upon the action plan so that the performance of the organization could be managed by executives and managers and transparency in work processes could be increased, thus providing better public service. Having experienced the effects of SMIS implementation in Korea, CASA decided to verify its practicability in the international community. So CASA introduced the SMIS to the participants of Global DGCA Conference in Montreal, Canada in March 2006. Great interest in the system and requests from over 20 countries boosted MOCT to proceed to the third stage – delivery of the SMIS to other countries. In addition, taking into consideration the diverse operating environments of other countries, CASA developed international version of the SMIS for universal use including translation into the English language while upgrading the functions of the system itself. As a way of practical assistance to the SMIS user States, CASA developed a system user and installation Manual, On-line Help Desk, and training programs, etc. Most importantly, CASA made a decision to deliver SMIS free of charge to all interested countries since the aim of delivery was enhancement of world’s aviation safety. However, it set forth signing of MOU with CASA in order to ensure continuation of cooperation for aviation safety. For efficient delivery of the system, CASA sent its technical staff to assist the user States in installing the SMIS and to provide training in its use rather than just sending an official letter or documents. Moreover, together with the delivery of SMIS to the international aviation community, Korea is pursuing the building of an international aviation safety network by linking ICAO’s USOAP database developed to monitor compliance of 189 Contracting States with SARPs. As a first step, technical consultations are ongoing with ICAO’s technical staff for interface between the SMIS with the ICAO system

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
First, more than 10,000 SARPs provisions used to be manually managed in hard copies but switchover to the database and on-line management made it possible to reduce workload of responsible personnel and monitor all working processes in real time, leading to fast and accurate decision making, Second, clearer accountability also meant clearer outputs of the tasks, which served to ensure currency and practicability of safety regulations, which is core activity of civil aviation authorities. In this way, SMIS became the basis for Performance Based Administration in civil aviation authority. Third, before implementation of SMIS in December 2005, the domestic regulations that did not conform to SARPs numbered 1,139 but this was reduced to only 390 by July 2006 with the use of SMIS and further decrease to only 36 instances by October 2006. SMIS also led to the infusion of almost all SARPs into domestic regulations, which leads to significant enhancement of aviation safety in Korea. Fourth, it is no longer necessary to repeatedly invest valuable time, efforts and manpower to review conformity and required improvements for overall SARPs every time SARPs are amended. All conformity reviews and updates are managed by SMIS and the most updated SARPs and corresponding domestic regulations can be maintained by simply checking the changes effected by the amendments. Fifth, as SMIS user satisfaction went up so did the performance efficiency of SMIS staffs. In a survey of SMIS’s contributions concerning work efficiency, 65.6% of the users indicated that they were very satisfied and 31.3% responded positively to SMIS, resulting in a total of 96.9% of the users giving SMIS a positive evaluation. Sixth, when the interface between the two systems is accomplished, it will bring great benefits to both ICAO and the SMIS user States. Since export of information regarding SARPs compliance to ICAO can be done with great ease, ICAO contracting States, as a signatory to the Convention, could meet their obligation to notify differences between SARPs and national regulations in accordance with Article 38 to the Convention. From the ICAO’s perspective, it will make it easier to collect information and to monitor compliance of each contracting State. In the end the system interface will contribute to improving global aviation safety as well as to increase efficiency in work process of both States and ICAO. Lastly, enhanced safety through decrease in non-compliance and increased efficiency through reform of work process will definitely help CASA to provide better administrative services to the people using air transport. Furthermore, free delivery of SMIS to international community helped the user States to take best advantage of the benefits from SMIS without duplication of efforts and resources. In other words, resources, energy, time spent in developing SMIS have been saved in a number of States that use SMIS. As many States are enjoying benefits of SMIS, world aviation safety are getting improved, ultimately providing better services to all passengers of the world who use air transport.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
As long as air transport exists, SARPs will be in existence to ensure aviation safety and all aviation related management will be involved in securing compliance with SARPs. SMIS was designed for effective and efficient implementation of these procedures and as such its utility will grow. In Korea’s experience, the biggest difficulty in ensuring conformance between SARPs and domestic regulations was the extensiveness of the SARPs that have more than 10,000 provisions and their constant amendments that meant that domestic regulations would become outdated with only a short passage of time. The management of this history also required immense time and efforts. SMIS is a system that integrates internet/intranet environments, database and processes and that can be easily managed anytime, anywhere to suit the changes in ICAO’s SARPs. It also has the capability and advantage of checking progresses in required actions to meet international standards. Along with establishment of SMIS, operational standards were developed to assign duties and responsibilities for managing compliance with SARPs. In addition, as well as for maintaining integrity of the database, the working processes were systematized so that SMIS can be utilized as a practical and sustainable tool in promoting aviation safety. In particular, as all the process of managing SARPs and its implementation is being monitored by SMIS, it encourages executives to manage responsibly and provides officers in charge with the motivation to take active steps. Such feature of the SMIS will enable the sustainability of the work to be further strengthened. Since the SMIS was further developed for international use by civil aviation authorities, it can easily be installed on any computer with only minor adjustments to fit the operational environment of information systems used in a country that wishes to use the SMIS. In addition, CASA made all the preparations including customizing so that the SMIS can be delivered to all ICAO member states free of charge. Sustainability, productivity, efficiency and other positive effects of SMIS are clearly evidenced by the fact that a great number of ICAO contracting states have requested delivery of SMIS or further explanation on the system. To provide full support in use of SMIS, CASA already runs an Online Help Desk to give help with debugging and system upgrades. CASA also developed a training program for operation and use of SMIS in countries that lack information system infrastructures. CASA’s support does not stop at just delivering the system but will continue to upgrade the SMIS and its support continues through the Online Help Desk. CASA plans to further develop the SMIS in 2007 in order to allow service providers (airport operators and airlines) and individual airman(pilots, air traffic controllers, mechanics) to use the system, which will facilitate allow the two-way communication between regulator and service providers. Government budget(190,000USD) for this project has already been secured. Aside from aviation, SMIS may also be customized and adapted by all administrative agencies where conformance with international standards is required such as sea transport, labor, and environment sectors.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
Development of SMIS is not just adoption of a simple information system but innovation of working processes and management methods. A lot of difficulties were encountered in developing the system, but they were overcome through the following efforts. First, one of the biggest difficulties was to encourage the employees who were accustomed to their routine to actively participate in the new and unfamiliar project. Hence the head of CASA and all top senior officials concentrated the agency’s full focus on getting these staff involved in the innovation process and motivated employees by sharing their great vision for the improvement of world aviation safety. Furthermore, they ensured smooth promotion of the project through efficient organization and operation of Task Force teams and appropriate allocation of personnel. Second, finding problems was not as difficult as identifying what to do and how to resolve them. This was resolved through frequent team meetings that induced creative and voluntary participation of all team members. Team leaders abnegated from unnecessary control of their team members, only making proposals for specific missions with aim to finding the best solutions and accomplishing goals, while leaving the team members to choose their own methods and procedures. The solutions arrived at through the team meetings served as the driving power for encouraging voluntary participation of the team members in the implementation stages. Third, most of the staff members that needed to play leading roles in the project were already heavily burdened with overwork caused by manual management of regulations. But, this helped to persuade them that successful completion of the project would increase work efficiency and come to reduce the workload. In addition, strong incentives such as overseas training opportunities (23 FAA training programs and 2 aviation safety auditor’s courses), work opportunities at international organizations (2 as ICAO panel member and 1 as an alternative representative on the ICAO Council) in order to transform their concerns into hope and motivation for the project. Fourth, CASA made a full use of research institutions and external information technology experts to make up for insufficient expertise in information technology to develop database system. Their objective and expert knowledge, opinions and advice contributed appreciably to the development of SMIS that led to realization of the innovation. Last but not least, two-way communication between regulator and service providers of civil aviation that is most important in ensuring safety was not considered from the very first stages of the innovation. If it had happened, the results would have been much greater and enhanced customer satisfaction. Hence, CASA plans to develop methods to include information on the implementation status and best practices by service providers. CASA will promote partnership and cooperation between all the aviation stakeholders including regulators, aviation industries, and international aviation organizations by executing the plan in 2007.


Institution Name:		Civil Aviatoin Safety Authority of Ministry of Construction and Transportation
Institution Type:		Government Department
Contact Person:		Man Heui Chang
Title:		Team Leader for International Aviation Office
Telephone/ Fax:		82-2-2669-6451
Institution's / Project's Website:		82-2-6342-7219
E-mail:		g_planco@moct.go.kr
Address:		274 Gwahae-dong, Gangseo-gu,
Postal Code:		157-711
City:		Seoul
State/Province:
Country:

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information