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The Road to TL 9000: From the Bell Breakup to Today

The development of TL 9000 caused a revolution in the telecommunications supplier industry
by Eugene E. Hutchison

telecommunications industry. With divestiture, as it is called in the industry, RBOCs were required to stop manufacturing products. Ameritech, Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic), BellSouth, Nynex, Pacific Bell, Southwestern Bell and US West were required to purchase all materials from suppliers, and they needed a way to control the quality of products shipped to them. As a result, Telcordia Technologies (formally known as Bellcore, the RBOC owned consulting organization), initiated a supplier quality management group for the industry. Jointly funding Telcordias service, the seven companies directed Telcordias activities through a council composed of representatives from each

INCE THE

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BREAKUP AND REOR-

RBOC. Telcordia provided technical expertise and manpower to execute the plans. Initially the size of the Telcordia organization was enormous. The field organizations alone had staffs with 70 or more source inspectors, and each inspector was logging 125,000 to 150,000 miles per year. QuEST Forum Product: TL 9000 Quality System

ganization of AT&T into the seven regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs), there has been a revolution in quality management within the

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Quest Forum/ASQ/University of Texas at Dallas managed system TL 9000 Feedback

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Results Data Measurements repository
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The structure for the quality system was developed by Telcordia to mirror most quality systems of the day. In those days, the best guidance we had from outside the industry was the militarys MIL-Q-9858 A standard. This approach resembled a large customer source inspection department of an aerospace company. The source inspectors gained a reputation as the toughest in the business. They held tremendous power in their decision making, and the approach predictably became unpopular as Telcordia inspectors exercised their authority.

The emergence of the Customer Supplier Quality Program

The source inspection approach lasted many years until, gradually, thoughts of prevention began to filter in. In the late 1980s, a new program emerged from Telcordia: the Customer Supplier Quality Program (CSQP). CSQP had many innovative features. It used the requirements of ISO 9000 as a base and created a process around those requirements. The CSQP program gained results and managed to build fine quality systems as a result. Under the CSQP approach, a team of supplier personnel, RBOC representatives and Telcordia facilitators met quarterly to review supplier progress. The process was funded by the RBOCs and yielded significant results for the RBOCs at many supplier locations. This approach was maintained for five to seven years until a fundamental paradigm shift came about. Three factors caused the shift: 1. Slow progress toward certifying companies in CSQP. 2. The high cost of the program. 3. The emergence of ISO 9000 quality systems options. The industry recognized that cost and speed in cer-

tifying companies signaled the process was mature, and viable ISO 9000 based alternatives were available. In response to this changing industry environment, CSQP evolved to become supplier funded. This allowed a company to continue with CSQP and selffund the activity (a reality in most other industries). By 1996, new factors became evident. There were only so many supplier quality managers available from customers to participate in the quarterly teams, and as the program grew, a severe shortage of RBOC personnel developed. In the end, CSQP proved it had the capacity to develop and maintain approximately 30 companies through this strategy.

A new approach
These new factors required another strategy that would meet the needs of procured hardware, software and services. Many approaches to quality management were available, but how could we get the industry to adopt one system? Representatives of the remaining RBOCs participating in Telcordia supplier managementVerizon, BellSouth, Southwestern Bell and Pacific Bellsearched for a new approach. They decided to create a customer/supplier forum to work on the issue. This forum, the Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications, or QuEST Forum, was created to develop quality management systems for the industry. This was a radically new approach for standards development. Using this approach, suppliers and telecom service providers would have an equal vote in developing a new strategy.

Strategy behind TL 9000 development, requirements and leverage

In October 1997, a small group of suppliers and

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The TL 9000 Model

QuEST Forum focus area ISO 9001

Book 1 Common TL 9000 requirements Hardware specific requirements Book 2 Hardware specific measurements Software specific requirements Common TL 9000 measurements Software specific measurements Services specific measurements Services specific requirements T L 9 0 0 0

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service providers met in Baltimore to discuss the concept of creating the QuEST Forum to develop the new quality system. At that meeting, a proposal was made to follow the lead of the automotive industry and create a sector specific ISO 9001 based quality system. By adopting the ISO 9000 system and the existing infrastructure of registrars, trainers and consultants, developmental work would be realistic because the QuEST Forum could take advantage of the existing ISO 9000 business system in the same way the automotive industry had. In addition, a low cost cooperative forum structure would promote fairness and facilitate support for the end product. The resulting product of this forum was TL 9000, which was developed and released in one year and received positive press throughout the process. The speed and success of this project are causing it to be evaluated for use in other standards activities.

QuEST Forum Goals

The QuEST Forums vision statement is: The QuEST Forum is a key force in the global telecommunications industry to improve the quality of products and services for customers through the collaborative efforts of service providers and suppliers. Forum goals are: Improve measurable industry quality performance. Establish world-class forum infrastructure. Develop and publish TL 9000 handbooks. Encourage companies to register to TL 9000. Increase forum membership.

Using TL 9000 for supplier management

Telecommunications companies are large, decentralized organizations that do not lend themselves to keeping track of a suppliers performance. Product shipping locations are all over the map, and systems for collecting good supplier performance information are just now beginning to emerge with the aid of Web technology. The previous lack of information hurt both the supplier and the customer. On the one hand, the customer could not tell how a supplier was doing, and on the other, the supplier did not typically have the data needed to help customers diagnose the problems. This environment could lead to reactionary supplier management based on misperceptions of the real situation. The solution lay with the only one who could maintain a clear view of the relationship at the micro level: the supplier. Thats where the idea of creating a standard set of supplier measurements came from. The belief was that if the measurements were required for certification, an effective audit and reporting structure could be developed. Figure 1 (p. 33) shows how the elements of TL 9000 interact. Telecom service providers require their suppliers to become certified to TL 9000. The suppliers in turn report standard measurements to the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), in a highly secure, certified third-party monitored system. When enough data points are available to assure the submitters anonymity, benchmarking reports are generated for the supplier and QuEST Forum members to use for self-comparison purposes. Finally, the supplier and customer (telecom service provider) are actively involved in a communication loop to assess and improve the relationship.

Requirements, measurements and organization behind TL 9000

Requirements are based on ISO 9001. Figure 2 shows how they are organized. Based on ISO 9001, Book 1 establishes a common set of requirements applicable to hardware, software and services. In the next layer, specific requirements for hardware, software and services are defined. In Book 2, standard industry measurements are defined in a similar way. Measurements applying to all products, such as on time delivery, are referred to as common measurements. Directly below, specific measurements for hardware, software and services are defined.

Standard measurements, benchmarking and improvement

One of the key elements behind TL 9000 is standardized measurement. These were developed separately from other requirements. In all cases, teams were formed around the topics, and a straw document produced. Then a facilitator was assigned, and the documents were edited live, using projectors, during the monthly team meetings. A great deal can be learned about how the industry is doing when measurements are standardized by supplier and product type. For example, a company focusing on one area of the business, such as on time delivery, may discover it is the leader in the area but has the highest field failure rate in the industry. Companies can readily identify weaknesses they can correct to improve their business. This is one of the goals of the QuEST Forum. Measurements themselves are a sensitive subject
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Development of TL 9000
The TL 9000 quality management system was developed in phases to keep the work process focused and manageable. Development phases progressed as follows: Phase 1: Development of TL 9000 hardware and software requirements. Phase 2: Development of hardware and software measurements. Phase 3: Development of service requirements. Phase 4: Development of service measurements. Phase 5: Update of TL 9000 quality system requirements handbook, Book 1, to realign with ISO 9001:2000. Phase 6: Further development of TL 9000 quality system measurements handbook, Book 2. Charter of the Business Excellence Acceleration Model (BEAM), began in 2000. Phase 7: Support of TL 9000 requirements (under way in 2001). Phase 8: Continuing development of TL 9000 standard measurements handbook (under way in 2001). QuEST Forum chartered BEAM because of its experiences developing TL 9000 and input gained from global efforts. BEAM was initiated in response to the question: Registration is fine, but what comes next? BEAM is an active project with a mission to identify methods of encouraging and driving business improvement within the global telecommunications industry. The key BEAM objectives include: 1. Developing a supporting business excellence guidance document specific to the telecommunications industry. 2. Establishing a liaison with business excellence model administrators such as tho se from the Baldrige or the European Quality Award in order to: Explore areas of mutual interest and goals such as a sector specific guidance document. Eliminate duplicate efforts and align resources. Advocate and promote the use of global excellence models. 3. Designing a process for determining the effectiveness of the BEAM guidance application. In addition to these projects, the QuEST Forum will work to identify industrywide improvement initiatives based on the benchmarking data generated. This effort is expected to leverage the data gathered into concrete projects and results.

among suppliers. No supplier wants to be compared negatively to a competitor by a customer. In addition, companies are reluctant to give up information that might betray a competitive advantage to a competitor. The solution for that is anonymous data submission, but how do you prove to your registrar that data has been submitted for registration purposes? The answer is a double blind data submission and business rules about how many submissions must be made before statistics can be published about a specific product category. In this way, one forum administrator, ASQ, issues a code number and another, UTD, receives the data with a code number, enters them and notifies ASQ that the data were received in good order. All this takes place in a secure computer environment.

Status of QuEST Forum

As of this writing, the QuEST Forum has achieved its planned goals. It has released the TL 9000 quality system requirements, Book 1, and standard measurements, Book 2. In January, the forum approved the release of a new version of TL 9000, Book 1, which is aligned with ISO 9000:2000. Training has been developed for the industry and is publicly available. Registrars have been recruited and trained, and accreditation bodies are qualified. Forum administrators have been hired, and a secure data repository system has been developed. A successful pilot program was run, and companies are becoming registered. In addition, forum members have become liaison members to ISO Technical Committee (TC) 176 and have been actively working with the team for the past three years on ISO 9000, helping identify sector needs and policy for the future. The QuEST Forum is still rolling along and continues to grow. The forum now stands at 163 company members and is reaching out globally to other areas of the world. In May 2000, the forum hosted the second annual European Global Conference in Paris, France. This was followed by an Asian Global Conference in Yokohama, Japan, in June 2000. In October 2000, a full forum meeting was held in London, and the July 2001 forum meeting will be in Berlin. The QuEST Forum is actively registering companies to TL 9000, and the data

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repository at the UTD is receiving a large amount of data. Public training is available from Excel Partnerships and The SAM Group, the forums two sanctioned training groups. The forum has sold more than 19,000 copies of TL 9000 Books 1 and 2. At the beginning of 2000, 11 companies were registered to TL 9000. Today there are 63 companies registered at 97 sites, with 197 applicants in the process of becoming certified from all over the globe. Registrations have been issued in Brazil, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The QuEST Forum is a cooperative global forum for the telecommunications industry, and its future looks bright.

EUGENE E. HUTCHISON is program manager, global quality sys-

tems, at SBC in San Ramon, CA. He is one of the chief architects of TL 9000, chairman of the QuEST Forums Business Excellence Acceleration Model team and leader of the forums TC 176 liaison team. He earned a masters degree in business from Golden Gate University in San Francisco. Hutchison is a certified quality manager and member of ASQ. QP

Expected benefits
The immediate expected benefit of all this progress is the elimination of multiple industry quality management systems and conflicting measurement requirements. This is in line with one of the TC 176 guidelines for acceptance of sector specific standards: the reduction of the proliferation of additional competing requirement sets. In addition, the potential results of measurements and their use and an organized customer/supplier interface have tremendous possibilities for helping companies steer toward excellence. The QuEST Forum also provides a great industry connection and lends access to resources within this cooperative environment for work on quality issues. The ability to tap this collective quality brain trust in search of solutions to large problems is a real advantage to member companies. In the words of one of our key founding executives, Why wouldnt you want to be in the worlds leading forum on telecommunications quality standardsa forum and series of discussions where all your competitors, suppliers and customers are actively engaged?
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