Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • AT&T Focus 1992 Month?

    Uploaded by

    steve
    410 views16 pages
    corporate publication of AT&T Focus magazine

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Report this Document
    corporate publication of AT&T Focus magazine

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    410 views16 pages

    AT&T Focus 1992 Month?

    Uploaded by

    steve
    corporate publication of AT&T Focus magazine

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 16
    CELEBRATING - age. HabiEs i QUALITY: To All AT&T People: hen we adopted the Baldrige Award criteria for AT&T's own internal awards program, we did so because these rigorous tests of our commitment to customer satisfaction were the best available. They still are Winning the Baldrige Awards in 1992 demonstrates that AT&T can compete with the best —and win! The people of both winning businesses are, and should be, proud of their And, all AT&T people take pride in this, accomplishment recognition. Congratulations! As we look ahead, we should all be cognizant of the fact that with the joy of winning comes the rising expectation that all of us in AT&T will treat our respective customers in “Baldrige Style.” There is a “halo” effect that advantages us all in the marketplace — but only so long as we earn it, and earn it and earn it...... Hook forward to the day when all of AT&T qualifies as a Baldrige winner. | am convinced we can. RE. Allen, . Quality was Malcolm Baldrige’s obsession. The | US. Secretary of Commerce from 1981 until his death in 1987, Baldrige urged American manufacturers and service companies to ee es ae wc ages orig oe eee Suey ee Serie eee Sao cee cro ae al Se Ee | win, a company must have a world-class system for | managing its processes and its people. This system | should ensure continuous improvement in products or | services, and provide a way of responding to and satis | {ying customers’ needs. “The standards set by the Baldrige judges are strict: On average, only about half the maximum number of awards are granted annu- ally, Before 1992, only a dozen businesses had received Baldrige Awards, LDRIGE that AT&T had been honored in both the manufactur- Ing and service categories, Commerce Secretary Barbara Hackman Franklin offered congratulations to the company and, especially, its employees. Thetr efforts, she said, “are clearly proof that there's a renewed devotion to excellence, detail and good old- fashioned hard work in this country. have never been, prouder or more optimistic about the future that les ahead for American industry.” ‘SPANNING THE QUALITY SPECTRUM AT&T Transmission Systems, one of the com | pany’s oldest businesses, was honored as a manufac- turer. Three-year-old Universal Card Services, one ofits newest enterprises, was recognized in the services div- sion. Aptly, these two businesses represent industry, | the backbone of the nation's economy until now, and services, which increasingly are coming to define the Information economy ofthe 2st century tn 188 ATT Chama Bob Alen mnuneed the ga cf making the company “the best inthe word at deen | the bees craton techno" The company’s To | ‘Quality Approach, which is modeled on the same criteria for excellence used in the Baldrige competition, puts the cus- te fs. The bes poland eves, eer, come trom the best worktore which means that sie ATE, employes have more authority and more rsoures to cone them to fon and sats customers. This theme Caled “enpowerent ds the st 0 exp how ATT achieved the distinction of winning wo Baldrige Award, Eacellence at ATT i by no means iited othe | two business units honored with these awards. The com- pany set an internal record this year when five business Units qualified to receive the Chairman's Quality Award (CQN)in the Achievement category, seven units received Improvement Awards and seven more were recognized for substantial progress. Patterned on the Baldrige Award, the CQA recognizes tht world-class quality can be found throughout the company. Indeed, ATAT pioneered modern methods of mea- suring and improving industrial quality. The most famous names in quality improvement, from Walter Shewhart to W. Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran, have been AT&T employees, This year alone, the com- pany received scores of maor national quality awards, in addition to the Baldrige. So the story of quality at ATT is and always has ben the story ofits employees—the story of a process of, constant change and improvement. Two Baldrige Awards. are significant milestones in this process, but they aren’ the finish line. By the time excellence is achieved, cus tomers are already demanding a higher level of perfor ‘mance. To meet that challenge, ATAT aims not merely to satit ts customers, butt delight them. And, as you wll sein these pages, ATAT i succeeding Poor onto TBU INA NUTSHELL |¢; International Division: Formed: 1989 (Was part of Western Electric and Bell Labs) Employees: 12, Domestic: 000 International: 3,000 Greg Hughes and | | Lou Monteforte | | —Ed Domenech, Merrimack Valley Company, AT&T's Transmission Systems Business Unit (TBU) has hhad a long and distinguished history develop- W: its roots in the Western Electric | I ing and manufacturing the equipment that ‘makes modern telecommunications possible. TBU was formally created in 1989 as one ofthe six business units that comprise AT&T Network Systems, AT&T's largest manulac turing group and the leading worldwide sup- plier of network telecommunications equip tment, Its quality efforts, however, go back | years before the breakup of the Bell System. All changes since then — for AT&T and the ‘now-independent Regional Bell Operating | Companies (RBOCS) — hi focus and_ strengthen TBU's commitment to continuous quality improvement. THE ENEM tleasta hal dozen times where in America, a buried AT&T cable is accidentally severed. The culprit is usually backhoe operated bya power company or publicsworks department or con- struction company’ The engineers responsible for main taining AT&T's net- work, therefore, \whimsically call all such cable cuts backhoe attenua tion” (an engineer's word meaning “to weaken"). And until 1992, cuts could spell disaster, ike the one in November only served to in six years, the unit has achieved a 10 fold improvement in product quality; in the | last four years, the unit has cut in half the time it takes to get product to market. reduced inventory by 40 percent and had ‘more than $375 milion n cost savings; and in the last two years, it reduced the number of product returns by 50 percent. “Our people gave us these results” says TBU President Greg Hughes. “Ive seen them in action, I have only thanks and admiration for their hard work in helping TBU contin: ously improve its ability to serve customers.” From the start, TBU was focused on fine tuning its efforts to keep customers satstied. Then, TBU's customers were largely the RBOCS and ATAT itsel. Now, TBU has cus- tomers around the world: local exchange and BACKHOE ATTENUATION 1988 that knocked ‘out communications between New York and Washington for Ghours. ATAT's FASTAR automatic restora tion system has made such outages a thing ofthe past. ‘TBU plays a key role In FASTAR. The unit's DACS 11-2000 digital acess and cross-connect system, which ord nary connects high capacity circuits at Junction points along acable route, can create a detour around a cable auto- matically. The sys tem’s software capa: interexchange carriers; private network providers; state governments, the federal government and government-owned tele- phone companies throughout the world competitive access providers; cable televe sion companies and cellular service providers. But TBU’s focus on quality and customer satstaction hasnt wavered. TBU's products are manufactured at the Merrimack Valley and Oklahoma City Works. The products include: | Subseriber Loop Carter (SLC) Systems, | the central connection points between a cus tomer’ telephone and the local telephone company, Digital Access and Cross-Connect Systems (DACS), switches that automatically connect tra smission channels to set up spe- bility allows FASTAR torestore 100 DS3 ircuits—more than | Hattiesburg 67,000 voice lines— | and New Orleans, in five minutes Traffic was restored DDACS'perfor- | in five minutes. Then ‘mance was proved | alocal phone com: recently in two major | pany crew severed a cable interruptions. | cable between Inthe first instance, | Flagstaff, Ariz, and bolt of lightning as Vegas, Nev. FAS stucka fiberoptic | TARswitched to cable near Picayune, | alternate routes Miss., knocking out | in less than three service between minutes ial service circuits Digital Multiplexers (DDM), the equip- ment that combines telephone signals for high-speed, fiber-optic transmission; and Lightwave Digtal Transmission Systems (FT-2000 and FT Series G), high capacity fiber-optic communications systems. In addition, within the last several years, ‘TBU has established joint ventures in China, India and the Commonwealth of Independent States (lormerly Russia) to support its grov: ing international presence. And TBU has ‘employees in Spain, the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Nethert The key to TBU's success has been “empowerment” — giving workers the informa- tion and access they need to do their jobs, and the authority and responsibilty to take imme- In May 1991, a group of secretaries at Merrimack Valley saw a potential problem and decided to do some- thing about it. What Carole Sarcione, Ellen Scioleti, Sonia Tatarka and Anne Wiggin saw was that TBU's international business was increas ing rapidly. By itsel, that wasn't the prob- lem, but the lack of Inform business protocol and customs avail- able to TBU execu tives, sales represen- | looked at what infor. tatives and product | mation was currently available and began toiillin the gaps. The result of| their efforts isthe Intern Resource Center now located inthe library at Merrimack Valley Today, the Resource Center has profiles ‘on nearly 30 coun. tries, as wel as travel guides, video and audio language tapes and other reference materials, The team And help they did. They formed the POM! International Customs Team, which surveyed potential users to see ‘what kin of informa- tion was needed about what coun- tries. Then they managers who were pursuing the interna tional business was. ATT Is expanding globally and we felt we could really lse alot of business if people here don't know the ‘customs overseas,” Sarcione says. "We didn’t want that to happen, and we thought we could help” late action to meet the unit's quality goals Part ofthe success in empowerment is a result of the day-to-day partnership that has been forged between management and the unions representing employees at TBU's fa tories, The Quality of Work Life (QWL) pro gram at Merrimack Valley illustrates this partnership, as does the effort Jack “McKinnon, Transmission Systems vice pres dent, has made to spend quality time—in the best sense—with union and management employees, “lack has always looked on us not as labor or management, but as coworkers,” | says Joe Belanger, president of CWA Local hasalsoidenti- | | fied 325 people who speak another lan guage and are willing to inter: pret or trans: late. Pe the best result — ofallis expressed by Sarcione when she observes: “My think: ing has changed. ‘When I see a prob- Jem, think, T see a good quality story here; this can be resolved.’ Whereas used to think, This is problem; [can't do anything about it In all, more than $000 TBU employees currently serve on ‘over 860 quality teams. The number is ‘rowing. in part as workers like Sarcione suggest new teams be formed to resolve new challenges. "it really has made a big difference here” she says, ‘and I see other people thinking this way as wel, Bonnie B, Small Quality Award 188, 989, 1990 1365 at the Merrimack Valley Works.“ like to maintain that relationship. We've gained trust in each other learned the importance of our custom Whether they're in the US. or hallway around the world, And that's a lesson worth learn ing” and as a team have At the Merrimack Valley Works, one of TBU’s most ambitious goals is to improve hardware quality and reliability to the point that, by the end of 1995, only one in 10,000 circuit packs is returned, jestones in Quality / AT&T Transmission Systems AT&T Chairman's ATT Network 09000 Quality Award Systems Vision Registration” Io, 1992 Award 1991, 1992 1992 ‘Any time a customer sends a produ back, for whatever reason, it's our fault.” says Ed Crane, test strategy manager and leader of the group that designed the 1-in-10,000 mea surement system three years ago, when the return rate was 120 in 10,000. We accept all responsibilty for the problem and look for ‘ways to prevent it from happening again TTBU has launched the assault on defects 6 al fronts. Bell Labs product designers and factory engineers review all aspects of prod uct design, manufacturing processes, compo- nents and software to resolve quality Issues and to get ahead of problems they're built into a product. he goal of TBU's Achieving Product Excellence (APEX) teams is to develop products faster ‘while improving the processes used to take those products from concept to the marketplace. Bell Labs product devel ‘pers are examining every part of the product develop. ‘ment and manu turing process, with Massachusetts Quality Award 1982 Customer Supplier Quality Program 1992, Certification by Bellcore Ed Domenech, a production associate fon a team working on the 14n-10,000 objec- tive, notes that the team found 42 defects in the month its study began. Within five ‘months, the number had plunged to two. Now everybody wants to be on the team,” Domenech says. “They know that quality is important to the company. Management takes quality serlously—and we can make changes” smployees are also monitoring in two dozen customer lo to see how the products perform in “real time,” and to react quickly if a problem AL TBU’s Oklahoma City Works, workers use an approach called Total Quality C oF TQC, to solve problems with a stream. tions The TBU/Bell Labs Connection and Project “Management. Teams include subject mat ter experts that cross multiple prod: ucts and functions within the business Over the lat four years, APEX teams have been responsible for reducing by more than 50 percent the time takes to develop and launch new transmission an eye toward improving every step inthe process. Each APEX team represents a subprocess within the total Product Realization Process (PRP), such as Front End Process Requirements and Architecture Software, Integrated Circuits, Circuit Packs, Equipment, systems Veriiation, Product Delivery system, Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award 1992 lined, team-based management structure. In three years, more than 120 teams have ident fied nearly 4000 problems, from inefficient work processes to product errors, and cor rected nearly 3:50 of then TQC is not a program, i's a process, says Pete Gannon, Manufacturing vice pres: dent of the Oklahoma City Works. “it must be implemented slowly, and allowed to evolve ‘over several years, While we are only three years into TQC, the ideas it has spurred have improved our systems and made us more competitive For example, Carlene Coyle, a produc tion checker, can recall when correcting a manufacturing error could be delayed engineer responsible for a cir cuit pack couldn't be located quickly. “We brought in our TQC team and invited the engineer to sit in and work with us,” she says “Before, it sometimes seemed like you were lost out there. Now you know how to get an answer—and a solution. The result: The Quality Index at the Oklahoma City Works through 1992 is four times better than standard customer expec tations. Because qualty is such a priority, great emphasis is placed on early prevention,” says Pete Gannon. “If a process isn't operating within quality guidelines, it's stopped until corrective ation Is taken.” “Using Baldrige guidelines, we've learned a lot about what our customers want because the and expect from us,” says Lou Monteforte, TBU quality manager. “And we have no doubt that we'll learn more as we try to give them the excellent products and services they Carmen Sainz, far eft, works on cr cult board assembly at Merrimack Valley; Maddie Cartier operates a fork lift in a store- ‘oom there; and Janet Taylor, Joseph Cherestal and Vie Meola are inthe Customer Advocate Service test lab, QUALITY delight in services , Gp SU Sips 00 ¢ IO “Wife iat tf : WS ‘ € Sein =A UWos —Robl etre they besa working or ATAT Biisiefend Sane acs tothe movi The nme othe eure tay en spt rep hing abt the this tte toward qual scaled “Daigt Makes the Dirence™ elting rather hn jt sting. custome has teen Fal Kas gal cee ba prs Sen ef US ele ts uch nach 180 ‘Soy saying yur csomers nes nat enough he tet syeYoue to dag your service fom the rod the oe tatty Wow our Zod cera UCS bas et sl pat biter mute end str matte otnohum cel cards AT Universal Card Serves ceed 2040 tpn eal x DLL Ed Richardson is an ATT Universal Card Services assoc ate, nota private investigator, but when a cardholder with Alzheimer's dis- ease got lost, its very first day. n less than three years, it hhas become No. 2 among the 6,000 compet: tors ints industry, with more than 10 milion accounts and 15 million cardholders. Modeling the unit's management and opera tions on the Baldrige Award criteria, Kahn's announced goal was to win the Baldrige Award in six years — a goal UCS met three years ahead of schedule ‘The AT&T Universal Card, a combina: tion credit card and telephone calling card accepted by the 10 million merchants in the Visa and MasterCard systems, capitalizes on ATA’s proud name, but that doesnt explain Its growth. Monthly surveys of credit-card holders, including holders of cards issued CU Richardson turned ‘Sam Spade and tracked her down, ‘The woman had disappeared in a strange city while on vacation, Local police couldnt find her. Richardson recelved her hus by UCS's competitors, consistently rank the AT&T Universal Card on top in each of eight categories of customer satisfaction, ‘The crucial reason: UCS's associates are ‘empowered to make on-the-spot decisions to delight their customers. Their success is ‘measured in the success of the Universal Card — and in the volume of compliments UCS associates receive A family's vacation in New York City took a turn toward disaster when the bag containing their airline tickets, cash, credit cards and tickets to a Yankees game was stolen, The customer called UCS to arrange for a new card, but Associate Tom Swanson dida't stop | with closing the cus- such calls to come to him, even if he was | oftduty. | Five days later | the call came, and | the merchant verted that the woman seemed confused. Instantly Richardson, | conferenced the call tothe woman's hus- band and the local police. A medical team was dis- band’s call to UCS asking whether she hhadmade any | patched, and he — recent pur- and UCS — earned chases.She | the gratitude ofa dis- hadn't, which is | traught family where the story Later the would have ended | woman's husband for most credit card companies. But not for UCS, After verifying the man’s story —to make sure the ‘woman sulfered from Alzheimer’s, and wasn'ta victim ‘of domestic violence hiding for good res son—Richardson | team. twas ust luck putablockonthe | [took that first call ‘woman's card, soit | We could have got shetried touseit | ten the same result the merchant would | from anyone in the have tocall UCS.He | company.” ed for a called to thank Richardson for his help. "He was quite emotional —he was crying, actully,” Richardson recalls He gave AT&T Universal Card total credit for finding his wile, and I give total, credit tothe entire tomer’s account and dispatching a replace- ‘ment card for overnight delivery. He called the customer's hotel, authorizing the family’s stay that night; the airline, to replace the stolen tickets; and, most unexpectedly Yankee Stadium. The customer didn't report ‘who won the game — but he did report that ATA had won his family’s deep gratitude. When an ATM machine in Paris gob bled up a customer’s Universal Card one Saturday afternoon, Customer- Relations Associate Elizabeth Morrison asked the “American Embassy to take the man to one of the few banks open atthe time and vouch for him so he could get emergency cash. WA cardholder in Washington, D.C spent a day and a half phoning for tickets to ‘popular rock concert, only to have her “THE PARTNERSHIP {twas a nightmare for users ofthe ATAT Universal Card — which made ita nightmare for the company. Ona key back- toschool shopping Saturday in September, ‘one of the ‘companies hired by UCS to process merchants requests for authoriza tion sufiered| computer failure. For four hours technicians struggled to restore the system, During that time, the transactions of 35,000 ATT Universal Card hold- ers were denied Although the failure wasn't UCS's fault, UC customer Herculean weekend, authorizing charges ‘manually. The unit's senior managers convened on Sunday and drafted a letter ociates began a ATAT Universal Card declined because of a system authorization problem. When she called Larry Banks to complain, member services associate began placing a he card: series of calls to the Washington ticket nncy. When he finally got through, the nt refused to take the authorization. Saying, “Im not going to hang up until my customer has tickets,” Banks finally got to talk to a supervisor — and the cardholder got to attend the concert Giving its employees responsibility for ensuring customer satisfaction — and the authority to cut through red tape to achieve that goal — is only part of UCS's strategy to become a leader in an industry that long has practiced “business as usual.” The AT&T Universal Card also char ‘of apology signed by President Paul Kahn. By Wednesday copies had been mailed to each of the 25,000 cardholders who had been incon. venienced, apologiz Ingand enclosing a S10 service guaran tee certificate. The result was a flood of i complimenting UCSforits concern, rather than eritiiz: ingit for the lapse. And because partnership with ven dors is one ofthe key ements in providing top-quality service, the credit authoriza tion company whose system had failed agreed to pay the haltmilion dolla cost ofthe ceri cates. ‘We've set per: formance standards for our vendors and virtually all have signed on in partner: ship with us” Kahn says. “When vendors aren't wiling to join us in our quest for quality, we drop them.” ey Snes foots? eens Cees Peete et Pros much less interest than the industry average — currently more than three percentage points less. Customers who signed up in the first, or charter, year are guaranteed no ser vice fe fr life, And when UCS discovered it was reject: ng one in 10 creditworthy applicants because of poor information from credit bureaus, it pressured them to open their records to consumer review and correction. When UCS was launched the credit-reporting dustry’s accuracy rate was a dismal 36 per- cent. Now, less than three years later, i is up to 98 percent, and rising. IC UCS were a separate company, it ‘would be worth an estimated $2 billion, But it has also excelled at its original purpose, which was to buttress AT&T's core business ‘of longedistance calling. In 1991 alone, UCS cardmembers increased ATAT calling card usage 40 percent Every element of UCS's success, how ‘ever, ultimately can be traced to its people “The best way to delight customers is to delight the associates who work here,” says Rob Davis, the unit's chief quality officer ‘uur commitment Is to be the best place to work. UCS people treat our customers gor ‘geously —just as UCS people are treated And UCS people agree. Customer Associate Detrick Plerre says: “I do feel lke were empowered. The then a free hand to make the judgments we need to make in order to help the card: holder. You don’t have shoulder at all fe us training, and » look over your AT&T Universal Card Services: Opened its 1 millionth account just 78 days after launch on March 26, 1990, Drs No. 2 in the bankcard industry with more than 10 million accounts and more than 15 million cardholders, D> Has lowered its variable intrest rate five times (for a total of more than three per: centage points), and currently is more than three points below the industry average. Prlnits first 30 months, averaged 10,000 new accounts a day, or more than 300,000 per month D> Has led the industry in helping the three major credit bureaus correct inaccu rate consumer information reports; the accuracy rate is now 98 percent, up from 36 percent when UCS began operations. D> Has ranked No. 1 among credit card companies in the Equitrends Customer Satisfaction Survey two years in a row D> Receives and a son more than 30 agestions from its assock ates than the banki industry average Associates Danny Lee and Julie Eden, left, and, below, the Business Improve- ‘ment Team, Front row, from lft, are Greg Brueland, Linda Swanson and Jean Collins. Back row, from left, are Robert Hughes, Mike Plummer, Holly Harvey and Greg Swindell Or TEs eu or) rr) Prd American Marketing Association Edison Award: Best New Product in 1990 National Association of Suggestion Systems: Performance Excellence Award 1991 Gold Eifie Award Advertising Campaign -1991 American Marketing Association COMPASS Award AT&T Humat Resources Professionalism Award - 1992 AT&T Chairman's Gold Improvement Quality Award - 1991, 199 AT&T Chairman's Bronze Achievement Quality Award - 1992 Malcolm Bald National Quality Award -1992 What Is Empowerment? How Does It Work? Sometnes t's ore inperantosops, | procs tha at Rabody knows tat beter tan wets “on thelne snd they nett srewualy hee Shetoc ata Data tas Fer Tene Mating Cera Sirersping “Ase ae theca ota ing the ga Seppe neo ay Meas po ccedunder thet Mercedes Wao iepregans drei nthe cow te ih provides tckconmiatns Syston et rayon, Mate ed teen that empl euel menage imate ly overheat to yeu. Ghent aewopig and exeetng total pally approach Seturned thea structure upside down shea Nery athe changes realted in sing workers tow caedeeock ates—agreater sy Employee ecg tion aoa the bost'soh sow abet by associates, “We lo insted the co cept of upward appr, where the eatesip was assessed by thar customers the 80- Gate ofthe organ. txectves pay atenton: Tek com persion inked | other eration Workngto ims ato ines there, the cer aso empowered is ass- Cates to question propeed prot ‘offerings if they doubted the prod ucts could be deliv ered. Therehave | been lots of instances where associates who were close to the work,andwho | knew that g standards couldn't bbe et, had the power to intervene.” Walton says The whole idea, she says, “i to estab- lish accountability In total quality man- aged enterprise, everyone is account able to the process —and to each other.” putting customers at the top of the tradi tional structural pyramid, This wasn't just a ‘new organization chart. It crystallized a devo- tion to excellence in products and services, reflected in AT&T's Total Quality Approach, which rests on six guiding principles ‘The customer comes frst ualty happens through people Il work is part of a process ‘m Suppliers are an integral part ‘of our business Prevention is achieved through planning Quality improvement never ends ‘ATT is going tobe the finest company In the world in the eyes of its customers,” says Philip Scanlan, Corporate Qualty Office I 1988 AT&T turned itself upside down, A PROUD TRADITION ATAT didn't invent quality, but its employ- es did invent many ofthe fist and best systems for ensuring quality in industrial ‘manufacturing. In an ironic historical twist, ‘many of AT&T's innovations were eagerly ‘embraced by Japan —and the Baldrige ‘Awards in part, a national recognition of the need to restore tis tradition to the United States. For AT&T to become the fist US. corporation to win two Baldrige Awards closes the quality circle. ‘Quality began at the Wester Electric Ina “heat tent” at Merrimack Valley are Kenny Leung, foreground, and Bill Perkins, Tong So ‘and Don Dery. AT&T's Total tu Ee vice president, goal unless we bulld a solid foundation on But we can't achieve that these six eritical principles.” These principles aren't linear — the accomplished before the second is begun — but circular and mutually reinforcing. In pa ticular, customer delight and employee empowerment are where the circle closes. To ‘customers, AT&T i its peor tomers, employees must have the resources to provide the quality of product and le ullls AT&T's promise to be “the most helpful company AT&T is a powerful brand name — more powerful now than it has ever been. For example, a consumer survey taken in 1984, at the time of the Bell System break-up, found that only four percent of Americans knew service th Company inthe early 1920s. Walter Shewhart, the father of statistical quality control, demonstrated that, whereas Inspection only eliminated substandard products statistical methods could be used to increase the number of good products produced, Today, the highest honor bestowed by the American Society of ‘Quality Control isthe Shewhart Prize. Continuous quality improvement was ‘emphasized by a onetime worker at ‘Western Electric’ famous Hawthorne Works, Joseph M. Juan, who embarked on a distinguished consulting career and was subsequently awarded Japan's Second AT&T provided longdistance telephone ser vice. Today, surveys show that AT&T is one of the halidozen most powerful brands inthe overall US. marketplace Through other surveys, three key dimensions have emerged as critical to enhancing AT&T's reputation, or brand pos tion: providing the most helpful service, pro- viding innovations that expand people's capabilities, and being worthy of trust. What the three add upto isthe overall quality goal of the AT&T enterprise today: becoming th ‘most helpful company in th tomers everywhere nployee empowerment is critical to reaching this goal. To this end, ATT is com mitting tools and training, delegating increased authority to Order of the Sacred ‘Treasure, Quality by design canbe traced to ‘George Levenbach at Bell Laboratories and a colleague inthe "Netherlands inthe 190s an ts. Quality by design's emphasis ‘on integrating final quality ito every element of production has ‘become a virtual model in Japan —as well as am ingpration forthe Barge Award Those who think ATET wrote the book on quality are ight: Bonnie Small was leader ts people, and looking at new ways to reward and recognize them for ther efforts. And the People of AT&T, in turn, are using their new resources and responsibilities to go beyond customer satisfaction and into the realm of customer delight, ‘One measure of our success will be when AT&T employees can routinely say they are able to delight our customers on a Another mea sure, of course, is customers who say our people are the most helpful they've ever encountered. Someday,” he concludes, daily basis,” Scanlan sa} “other companies will match our progress. But by then we'll have moved on to even higher levels of customer delight. The process never ends, ‘ofa team that in 1958 published the Western Electric Statistical Quality Control Handbook. ATE has replaced Western Electric in itt, but the book, considered the defin- tive text init eld, is stillin print and more than one milion copies have been sol The AT&T Quality Library in Berkeley Heights, NL, has books on quality forsale For mor information, call -$00432660. ee ATT has achieved exec Wiesemets ei: ey throutedt he company, tans connt and este nad cues Hee elie eras Irn Sar afl, Texas, ney 1200 ltrnatnal Account Mangement Center hobingcstomers i Englah an a oso ote pages th eveything om st- Selg to new sac to reacg tg | putes he Cntr te Cine inte summer ef 1, Kent akon, in e qu i incitator of the Customer & Competitors Team a the center, mas ead upon by the | international Unit his ternal strategie | busines partner — top develop anew What Others See At AT&T a ened ATATS very succes Special Country Pan, The Center was well aoe ictal avare of ATT longdlstance rv promo- Bases Unt Avan a tons, which olered dacounts on requ cal othe same number overseas, The pr- AT&T American “Top Award Telemarketing Service qulty Transtech magazine mation are targeted at peopl in Ameria T&T Bell Technological Research & Prot uy |v tong fay es abroad But he Sn Laboratories Innovation Development Antonio people knew that what customers ragazme really wanted were discounts to their native ———an 5 land, so they could talk to a numberof family TAT Corporat National Medal ofthe President Bush ‘Community service be members an ends tt one. The ATT — —_____ plan gives an automatic 15 percent discount ATT Corporate Fortune magaine Busnes despa a aed county eae pee a his has just been fantastic,” Jackson | Aaa Corporate Business Leadership National Wnonty _Communtyserice | gays, “This is one time the product was SSS SS arr SE Dereon Comoe | designed around the ideas ofthe people talk- AT&T Power Systems Shingo Prize for Utah State University Produt quality ing to customers. thnk what's most trill Excellence in College of Business to people here is that they see some of their rca aie uaty iS __anactg __ ____ In Global Business Communications AT&T Business Dest Overall: ext Data Communications Service qual Systems, which sell and services office tele- Communications ——‘Techaologyinlong- maga eae bonateae ual feoial claire Services Distance Caer a" ia Calandra oversaw lawsuits brought against the company by unhappy customers. "Not ATaT Bisse ATAT ated Fistin unc Word Sericequty | a,

    You might also like