21st Century Quality
STANLEY A. MARASH

As the next millennium approaches, more and more companies are looking for new ways to improve the quality of their business processes. They want something that builds on their existing quality system but shows more opportunities for troubleshooting and growth, gives a sharper comparison edge than benchmarking and is more industry-specific than ISO 9000.

The telecommunications industry has recently put forward an industry-specific quality system, TL 9000, to address those needs. Those within the industry learned from the experience of other industries,  incorporating metrics to more accurately measure quality, troubleshoot and compare companies within the industry.

     Typically,  quality system requirements impose a blueprint on a company's processes to establish a set of interrelated system-level procedures and work instructions, plus a system for recording objective evidence that the requirements are being met. To this structure, TL 9000 adds metrics to gauge how well a company is doing in regard to quality.

Measurables that track product and service performance from the customer's point of view provide a tool for continuous improvement and help improve overall customer satisfaction. The guidelines for metrics definition provided by the Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications (QuEST) Forum, a partnership of telecommunications service providers and suppliers, ensures that the focus is on customer satisfaction and guarantees metrics uniformity for reliable industry comparisons.

In 1998, the QuEST Forum started developing the TL 9000 quality system requirements and metrics to reduce poor quality, and its cost, within the telecommunications industry. The first book, TL 9000 Quality System Requirements, was issued in April 1999, and the second book, TL 9000 Quality System Metrics, is now in preparation. By defining the telecommunications quality system requirements for the design, development, production, delivery, installation and maintenance of products and services, the QuEST Forum builds on ISO 9001 and incorporates cost- and performance-based metrics to measure progress and evaluate results of quality system implementation. Moreover, TL 9000 adds specifications to ISO 9001 for hardware, software and services; hence, it is not only industry-directed, but it addresses the major segments within the telecommunications industry. The TL 9000 requirement even explains each party's responsibilities in the reporting process.

By requiring companies seeking TL 9000 registration to define and report on metrics for their products or services, the QuEST Forum makes accurate statistics available for industry mean, standard deviation, median, range and best in industry ratings. After the data is processed and statistics made available, participating telecommunications companies can compare themselves with industry peers.

The level of detail in this benchmarking gives companies feedback on how successful they are in implementing TL 9000 and improving quality. The TL 9000 requirement for metrics reporting has a built-in payoff: Companies can see the impact of implementation both over time and in comparison with the rest of the telecommunications industry.

The University of Texas at Dallas will collect and analyze data reported by participating companies, and will post information to the QuEST Forum Web site. The identity of each participating company is coded; in effect, this is a double-blind system, assuring each company's privacy.

Companies must be ISO 9001/9002 certified before applying for TL 9000 registration. A parallel ISO 9001/9002 and TL 9000 application is possible, but may demand a large amount of resources from a business. Without enough preparation, the ambitious business may set itself up for a big fall at auditing time. Training is therefore a deciding factor in the successful implementation of the TL 9000 quality system in individual companies and the telecommunications industry as a whole. With that in mind, the QuEST Forum has developed a suite of training programs to ensure that telecommunications service providers and their suppliers understand how TL 9000 impacts their procedures, plans and records.

The QuEST Forum has sanctioned three courses for the industry at large: TL 9000 Quality System Overview, TL 9000 Quality System Requirements and Metrics Implementation, and TL 9000 Quality System Requirements and Metrics Auditing. In addition, there is a three-day course designed for registrar's auditors. All auditors employed by QuEST Forum accredited registrars must take this course and pass the examination.

Telecommunications service providers, their subscribers and their suppliers are all expected to benefit as a result of implementing TL 9000.  A few anticipated benefits include continuous improvement of service to subscribers, enhanced customer-supplier relationships, standardization of quality system requirements, efficient management of external audits and site visits, uniform cost and performance-based metrics, overall cost reduction and increased competitiveness, enhanced management and improvements of suppliers' performance, industry benchmarks for TL 9000 metrics, and uniform training throughout the industry.

For more information on The QuEST Forum, visit www.questforum.org .

About the author

Stanley A. Marash, Ph.D., is chairman and CEO of STAT-A-MATRIX/The SAM Group. He can be reached at One Quality Place, Edison, NJ 08820, telephone (732) 548-0600 or e-mail smarash@qualitydigest.com .