TL9000
In 1987, the International Organization for Standardization created the ISO 9000 standards. After its publication, it was rapidly promoted and widely recognized in the world, and became a public standard to measure the quality management level and quality assurance ability internationally. In the 1990s, the three major automobile companies and aerospace enterprises in the United States developed their own special standards QS 9000 and AS 9000 on the basis of ISO 9000. With the globalization of the telecommunications industry, different service providers were inconsistent in the way they set up requirements in their contracts. All these caused difficulties in the communication between service providers, product manufacturers and customers, and brought unnecessary troubles. The second half of the 20th century was an era of rapid development of the telecommunications industry. With the rapid advancement of globalization of the telecommunications industry, contradictions became increasingly prominent. There were many quality system requirements in the telecommunications industry at that time, and repeated requirements and audits did not only make it easy to cause confusion, but also increased the business cost of suppliers. It became the common demand of telecom enterprises all over the world to set up a set of unified quality system requirements for this industry. Some well-known service providers in the telecommunications industry, led by Bell, proposed to develop a unified quality system standard, and established the QuEST Forum (Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications Forum) in October 1997. The Forum is composed of all the interested parties in the telecommunications industry, including:
－Service provider -- A company that provides communication services to users
－Supplier--A company that sells designed and developed communications hardware and software to a service provider.
－Certification body—A company that provides quality system registration/audit services
QuEST Forum is a world-level forum for cooperation and communication between service providers and product manufacturers in the telecommunications industry. Its goal is to unify all the quality system standards for the telecommunications industries, and to develop and maintain a common quality system management standard TL 9000 for the telecommunications industry on the basis of existing standards and practices. The forum is responsible for the development, publication and revision of the standard, as well as maintaining the consistency between TL 9000 and other standards.
The requirements in the TL9000 standard makes reference to all the requirements in the ISO 9000 standards, so "Compliance with TL9000 means the compliance with the corresponding ISO9001 requirements. The purpose of QuEST Forum is that once compliance with TL9000 is achieved, there is no need to demonstrate compliance with other telecommunications quality management standards".
TL9000 requirements consist of two parts. One part is "system requirements", which consists of requirements based on ISO 9001. ISO 9001 requirements are all adopted, and special requirements for the telecommunications industry are added. The second part is "measurement requirements", which specifies the measurements and calculation methods required for the implementation of TL 9000 in the communication industry. Organizations implementing TL 9000 must meet the requirements of the above two parts.
The TL 9000 requirements are described in a modular structure, as shown in the figure below
TL 9000 Model
TL 9000 is a quality system standard for the telecommunications industry based on ISO 9001. It includes all the requirements of ISO 9001, and any future changes to ISO 9001 will also result in changes to TL 9000. As long as the requirements of TL 9000 are met, it means that the relevant requirements of ISO9001 are met.
Difference between TL9000 and ISO9001:
1. Measurement are established
2. Classified requirements and measurements and greater clarity of requirements
3. The quantification of quality objectives is defined.
4. A product life cycle model is developed
5. Greater focus on planning
6. TL9000 places great emphasis on the communication between clients and suppliers.
QuEST Forum states in the requirements of the TL 9000 standard that the goal of TL 9000 is to "foster a quality management system that effectively and efficiently protects the integrity and usability of communications products (hardware, software, or services)" throughout the communications industry.
In summary, the intent of QuEST Forum is that compliance with TL9000 will eliminate the need to demonstrate compliance with other quality management standards for the communications industry. Implementing the TL 9000 quality system standard is expected to give organizations the following benefits:
――Provide continuous improvement service for clients.
――Achieve strengthened client-supplier relation
――Unify quality system requirements worldwide
――Consistent performance and cost-based measurements
――Effectively managed external audits and site visits
――Reduction of overall costs and enhancement of competitiveness
――The competitive position of qualified suppliers is strengthened.
――Performance management and performance improvement of subcontractors is strengthened.
――Creating a platform for improvement activities
The TL 9000 standard applies to quality systems of hardware, software, and services, and their related combinations in the telecommunications industry. The object of TL 9000 certification can be a complete company, an organizational unit, an installation or a specified production line recognized by both the supplier and the certification body. The scope of the TL9000 certification will be specified on the certificate.
TL 9000 certification process
(1) The organization has established a documented quality management system (including a data measurement system) in accordance with the requirements of the TL 9000 standard;
(2) Register with the forum at www.questforum.org according to the determined product scope and pay the corresponding registration fee, and submit the data to the forum on time.
(3) The organization has been in operation for at least three months in accordance with the requirements of the documented quality management system, has obtained three months’ measurement data that is confirmed by the forum, and has conducted at least one management review and one internal quality system audit following the requirements in the documents, so that the organization has a self-optimizing and self-improvement mechanism;
(4) Submit an application for certification to a certification body accredited by a national accreditation body, and sign a certification contract with the certification body with a determined scope of certification (including name, location, products and activities);
(5) One month prior to the certification audit, the organization should submit the materials required for the certification audit to the certification body, generally including, the application form, quality manual, procedure documents, product or service processes, business license, etc.;
(6) The certification body designates an audit team to review the documents submitted by the organization. The audit team would draw a conclusion on the documents submitted by the organization and prepare an audit plan to inform the organization of the specific audit schedule;
(7) The audit team conducts the on-site audit (Stage 1 and Stage 2) on the organization according to the arrangements in the audit plan. During the on-site audit, techniques such as questioning, conversation, reviewing documents and materials, on-site observation and actual measurement are adopted to obtain audit evidence, evaluate the effectiveness of the organization's quality management system and make a recommended conclusion for the on-site audit;
(8) After passing the on-site audit, the technical committee of the certification body reviews the certification audit materials, makes the final certification conclusion, and approves it at the forum. Finally, the certification body issues the certification certificate to the organization. The validity period of the certification certificate is three years.
(9) The organization that has obtained the certification certificate is subject to at least one surveillance audit arranged by the certification body every year within the validity period of the certificate to demonstrate the effectiveness of the operation of the organization's quality management system. When the certificate expires, the organization submits a certification application for re-certification to the certification body, and then starts another certification process according to the requirements in (3).
Detailed information about TL 9000 can be found at www.questforum.org.
CEPREI Certification Body is the first institution in China tojoin the Quest Forum, and keep close contact with the forum by frequently assigningauditors to attend international conferences of the forum (e.g. Hong KongConference in 2003 and Seoul Conference in 2004), directly participating in theformulation and tracking of the Chinese version of TL9000.
With six registered senior auditors of Quest Forum and numeroustelecom operators, telecom integrators and customers of the main communicationequipment, CEPREI Certification Body gains a full understanding of thecharacteristics of communications industry as well as the requirements ofcommunications providers at all levels. Meanwhile, CEPREI, affiliated with theMinistry of Industry and Information Technology of PRC, can keep abreast of theup-to-date standards, laws, regulations and other information about communicationsindustry.