Operational risk management - Air Force safety regulations - Brief Article

Combat Edge, March, 2002 by Craig K. King

From virtually day one of the Air Force's adoption of Operational Risk Management (ORM), we in Air Combat Command (ACC) have consistently promoted three themes:

1) Commanders and supervisors must tailor their units' use of ORM to their mission and local hazards. There is no single ORM application or "program" that will work universally well for every unit in the command. Unique missions, hazards, environment, personnel, resources, and countless other factors combine to render that approach ineffective. Too little attention paid to risk management will result in blind acceptance of risk from hazards that could have been identified. Too much formal ORM -- applied blindly -- could introduce its own hazard: inefficiency (promoting the notion that an hour invested in ORM must be more valuable than the same hour spent doing something else). Commanders must ensure the proper balance for their organization.

2) On-duty responsibilities entail risks with widely varying levels of complexity -- the amount of ORM training required for sound risk management varies accordingly. Off-duty pursuits also involve risk and account for the preponderance of our serious mishaps. ACC coined the term "Personal Risk Management (PRM)" to instill a risk-consciousness that carries over into off-duty hours, which is especially important for our younger troops. We authored and approved an abbreviated three-step ORM process called "A.C.T." (details available at https: //www.mil.acc.af.mil/se/4.1.act.htm) to account for situations where the principles of ORM apply (i.e., always), but where the level of complexity doesn't demand the more formal Air Force six-step process or when the time available doesn't allow it.

3) Accomplishing ORM is not optional. The Air Force is irrefutably committed to our understanding and application of it, supported by Air Force publications and messages too numerous to list.

One of the toughest aspects of promoting the application of ORM is getting leaders at the unit level to think out for themselves how to best utilize it to educate their people, support their mission, and preserve their resources. We at ACC Safety extend our thanks to Lt. Col. Morani for his ORM article. It demonstrates that the 338th Equipment Maintenance Squadron at Hill AFB, Utah, has done just that. Their approach may or may not match yours, but they are well on their way to integrating and sustaining ORM that works for them. We would like to publish examples of successful unit-level applications of ORM -- please send us yours!