Management Systems in Aviation: Challenges and Opportunities to Upgrade to an Integrated Management System

Airlines’ principal focus these days is on managing safety risks. However, multiple management systems are established individually to manage other risks without any form of interoperability to function as one integrated management system, to have a holistic view of the different risks in an organisation. This study will review if an integrated management system can be developed by looking at the interoperability of existing management systems to define a common standard/language across all individual management systems, to work as one integrated system. A survey was developed and rolled out via aviation organisations towards airlines to capture the quantitative data on how management systems are implemented, as these data are currently unavailable. The main contribution of this article is that it provides an overview of how management systems are implemented within airlines today, how they work together, and where interoperability could be improved between different systems. This paper provides the primary outcome of the survey, an overview of the status of interoperability between the different systems, and where interactions could be improved. Findings have shown that although different management systems are implemented, there needs to be a correlation to be able to work as an integrated system. Secondly, different management systems speak different risk languages with work against integration. Finally, large airlines with a fleet of over 50 aircraft have less integration between their different management systems. Besides the lack of regulations, IMS in aviation needs more research. This paper’s contribution lies here, as it provides an overview of which management systems are implemented in the aviation industry and if integration exists between those. Due to the limited research in this field, this paper, with the survey results, provides new insights into if and how interoperability exists between different systems in aviation. It also provides a unique insight into the different management systems airlines use. The results will be used in the following research phase to develop a concept for an integrated management system, one language, on which other management systems can be built.