Tellabs to achieve new quality standard

The leading US-based telecoms firm Tellabs has become one of the first organisations to achieve a new quality standard for the telecoms industry.

Following an audit by BSI Inc, Tellabs' manufacturing location in Round Rock, Texas, was one of 11 facilities recognized for having achieved registration to the newly released TL 9000 quality system requirements developed by the Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications Forum (QuEST Forum).

TL 9000 is an industry-specific quality system standard for telecommunications that is built on ISO 9000. To achieve TL 9000 certification, companies must meet unique, industry-specific requirements such as metrics for tracking performance. The announcement was made today at the QuEST Forum meeting in Dallas.

The QuEST Forum was formed by Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, Pacific Bell and Southwestern Bell in 1996 with 30 members. By the end of 1999, membership has grown to more than 100. International participants in the forum include representatives from Canada, Europe, Israel, Japan, Korea, South Africa and the United Kingdom. The American Society for Quality (ASQ) serves as the Forum Administrator for the QuEST Forum and the TL 9000 registration program.

Registration requires a third-party registrar to confirm implementation of the requirements. Applicants must also submit their performance metrics to the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), the metrics administrator contracted by the QuEST Forum. Tellabs' registration audit was conducted by BSI, Inc., an independent certification company for TL 9000 certification, during the QuEST Forum's pilot program.

"We've helped Tellabs achieve its quality goals by auditing its system and providing Tellabs' Round Rock facility with the first certificate for TL 9000 issued by BSI," said Mel Greer, vice president and general manager at BSI. "Being the first BSI-registered company to achieve TL 9000 has special meaning to Tellabs, BSI and the industry."

"Tellabs continues to demonstrate its commitment to customer satisfaction by implementing a quality system infrastructure to benchmark its own performance and that of the industry," said Joe Taylor, Tellabs' manager of strategic quality and chairperson of the Forum's TL 9000 pilot program workgroup. "The success of the pilot program can be attributed to the unique collaborative efforts between service providers, suppliers and their registrars, with the support of ASQ and UTD."

Other companies recognized by the QuEST Forum for achieving registration to TL 9000 include ADTRAN, Fujitsu, Lucent, Marconi, Motorola, NEC America, Nortel Networks, Pirelli Cables and Siecor.

Tellabs designs, manufactures, markets and services data, voice and video transport, switching/routing and network access systems. The company's products are used worldwide by the providers of communications services. Tellabs stock is listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market (TLAB).

For more information about the QuEST Forum or TL 9000, visit its Web site at http://www.questforum.org.

BSI helps organisations get the most value from their management systems through registration to international standards by a process-driven auditing approach. In addition to registering firms to the telecoms quality standard, BSI registers organisations to standards covering the management of information security, quality, environmental best practice, and occupational health and safety.