Press Release

Issued by Baines Simmons.

December 20, 2016

Air Partner's aviation safety consultancy division Baines Simmons has partnered with CGE Risk Management, the leading provider of barrier based risk management solutions, to offer two collaborative courses on Bow Tie training services. The courses are offered as part of Baines Simmons' suite of safety risk management courses and are entitled “Successfully Applying BowTieXP in Aviation Organisations” and “Barrier Management with BowTieXP, IncidentXP and AuditXP”.

CGE Risk's renowned BowTieXP risk assessment software toolset offers a next generation solution to assessing, visualising and treating an organisation's risks using the market leading Bow Tie methodology and barrier based risk management approach. Intuitive, accessible, communicative and comprehensive, BowTieXP has become a popular choice for proactive risk owning organisations across numerous sectors.

“Successfully Applying BowTieXP in Aviation Organisations” is a practitioner level training course aimed at enabling course participants to create effective Bow Ties, bespoke to their own aviation operations, within the BowTieXP software. As well as training delegates in basic software functionality, the course delivers an industry specific understanding of Bow Tie development best practice, barrier based risk management thinking and the ways in which well-constructed Bow Ties complement and enhance an organisation's safety management system (SMS).

Following on from this first course, “Barrier Management with BowTieXP, IncidentXP and AuditXP” takes delegates through the next steps in effectively managing risk and improving safety performance using barrier thinking and the BowTieXP software family. This recently launched course refreshes the principles of BowTieXP before demonstrating how to breathe life, accuracy and rigour into Bow Ties by binding them to an organisation's reporting, investigating, auditing and assurance activities.

IncidentXP takes the Bow Tie methodology and overlays structured incident and accident investigation capabilities. This leading-edge software allows occurrences to be mapped, assessed and managed within the single, coherent language of an organisation's Bow Ties, making the whole process more efficient, effective and auditable. AuditXP uses the same single Bow Tie language to help organisations proactively seek information and evidence for barrier effectiveness in a targeted manner. Combined, these three packages become a powerful aid to accountable decision-makers by providing an organisation with a holistic and tangible visualisation of its risks and the effectiveness of its defences.

Both courses are overseen by Mark Townend, a safety management consultant with specialties in risk assessment, safety performance, error management and SMS improvement. Mark, formerly a serving regular officer in the British Army for 13 years, has helped many organisations successfully integrate the Bow Tie risk assessment methodology into their SMS and realise its numerous benefits using CGE Risk Management's BowTieXP software.

Mark says: “The BowTieXP software family is a popular choice for aviation organisations keen to mature their approach to risk management by proactively analysing hazards and rigorously measuring the performance of required controls. However, to fully realise the benefits CGE's BowTieXP toolset offers across the organisation, you must have competent users. These two courses have been designed to ensure all participants fully get to grips with the software's wide ranging capabilities and smoothly integrate them into their organisation's working SMS.”

The next “Successfully Applying BowTieXP in Aviation Organisations” and “Barrier Management with BowTieXP, IncidentXP and AuditXP” courses will take place on 14-15 February 2017 and 16-17 February 2017 respectively, both at the Aviation Safety Academy at Fairoaks Airport, Surrey.