The Precision Approach

Tag: Operations Excellence

  • Crew Resource Management – What Is It? And What Is A SADCLAM?

    Crew Resource Management, at one time known as Cockpit Resource Management, or now just known as CRM, was and is the operations excellence process that the aviation industry adopted about 45 years ago. It was after a series of accidents marked by insufficient or inadequate communication, breakdowns in decision making, and misapplications of leadership that CRM implementation became an enterprise revolution, providing needed support to operations in high-consequence environments and in some instances, time-critical situations.

    At its core, CRM does not ignore hierarchical structures – the captain is the still the final authority in the airplane. Just the same, the CRM process requires the leader and the team to pursue all available resources to create effective outcomes. And CRM extends beyond the cockpit now as it also involves the flight attendants, air traffic controllers, maintenance personnel, first responders, and others who contribute to safe operations. CRM also accepts that human error is inevitable and creates structure to mitigate that.

    To create this structure, CRM teaches the soft skills of flying and teamwork. Navy and Marine Corps Aviation use(d) the acronym “SADCLAM” to itemize the fundamental elements of CRM (odd name, but true). “SADCLAM” stands for Situational Awareness, Assertiveness, Decision Making, Communication, Leadership, Adaptability/Flexibility, and Mission Analysis. Annual CRM analyses of Naval Aviators include feedback on all of these elements oftentimes during challenging situations, usually in the simulator.

    In posts to come, I will discuss three incidents – Eastern Airlines Flight 401, United Airlines Flight 173, and the Tenerife Accident – that defined the pre-CRM era of flying and how each of those incidents contributed to the creation and integration of CRM. I will also discuss incidents like Air France Flight 447 to show how even decades later, breakdowns in CRM can still occur.

    So how does your organization communicate? How does it make effective decisions, even in time-critical situations? And how does your organization cultivate leadership? Is it time for your organization to do a little SADCLAMming?

    More to follow…

  • Welcome to The Precision Approach

    Every day, around 44,000 airline flights take off and land in 29 million square miles of American airspace. All of this translates to around 3 million domestic airlines passengers transiting the national airspace system daily. By and large, all of these flights happen without incident. And when incidents do occur, there are procedures, protocols, and tools to in place to mitigate or abate the effects of the incident.

    This blog is designed to highlight those effective practices in the aviation industry for organizations of all types. While these practices of the aviation industry may not have complete applicability to non-aviation organizations, the intent here is to discuss them in an easily understandable manner to support organizational goals of excellence in operations and preparedness / readiness for obstacles to operations.

    I will discuss all of these effective tools under the disciplines of Communication, Decision Making, and Leadership in an effort to articulate everything in a way that may prove useful or insightful for your organization. If your objective is to become a “High Reliability Organization,” the content here will prove useful in support of that – more on “High Reliability Organizations” later.

    Between February 13, 2009 and January 28, 2025, there was only 1 passenger fatality on commercial air travel in the United States. This blog will explore the why and how of this statistic. If you have ever watched the United States Navy Blue Angels or the United States Air Force Thunderbirds fly the precision shows that they do so often, this blog will explore the why and how they do it. How do planes land on aircraft carriers at night, in bad weather, and in rough sea conditions? This blog will explore the why and how of that. And lastly, if you have ever wondered how many “stakeholders” there are invested in the safe operation of an aircraft in flight from Point A to Point B, this blog will explain this network of stakeholders and how they work together to send airplanes with a few hundred people more than seven miles above the earth moving at not too far below the speed of sound effectively several thousand times a day.

    Welcome.