This month in News Digest: Teams Shine at Sun Microsystems Certification Industry Consolidates as NTS-CS Acquires Two Registrars Student Quality Circle Debuts on Internet SME, ASME Explore Merger Final ISO 9000:2000 Document Expected Late Next Year Six Tips for Satisfying Telephone Customers Click for Industry News

Employee knowledge and experience count among a company's greatest assets. Sun Microsystems Inc. is using this resource to improve its practices throughout every level of the organization.

Founded in 1982, Sun Microsystems provides its customers with high-performance computer systems and solutions. The company is best known for the UNIX-based computer system and the Java programming language.

Four years ago, as part of the com-pany's quality initiative, Sun Microsystems implemented a team-improvement process. "One of the most important measures of quality is trust," says Jim Lynch, Sun Microsystems' director of corporate quality. "We earn a customer's trust by delivering products and services that meet customer expectations. And, just as we earn a customer's trust through quality, we build quality through the trust of our employees, partners and suppliers."

To achieve these results, Sun launched its SunTeams program, which gives employees the power to improve the company's processes in order to increase customer loyalty, product quality and increase employee collaboration and teamwork. The SunTeams initiative is based on successful team programs instituted in such leading companies as Motorola, Federal Express and Xerox.

The SunTeams program revolves around a group of employees who take ownership of improving an internal company process in order to either reduce customer dissatisfaction or increase customer loyalty. This leads to forming a SunTeam.

All SunTeams also compete for recognition at the annual companywide SunTeams celebration. At this event, the top teams present their improvements to the company's executives, who judge project outcomes on six criteria: teamwork and communication, project selection, analysis techniques, remedies, results achieved and institutionalized improvements.

"Over the past four years, the results have been phenomenal," says Lynch. "This year's 'best of the best' teams achieved goals including reducing specific product failures by 80 percent and cutting workstation manufacturing cycle times from 10 days to two days."

Since its inception four years ago, 15 percent of the company's work force has participated in the SunTeams program. Lynch estimates that some 300 SunTeams will save the company $20 million through process improvement and innovation this year.

Beyond the money saved, one of the program's greatest benefits is employees' sense of empowerment and achievement. "The SunTeams program not only positively impacts the bottom line, but also serves to attract and retain the best and brightest employees," explains Lynch.

For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.sun.com .

Certification Industry Consolidates as
NTS-CS Acquires Two Registrars

On March 12, National Technical Systems Certification Services acquired two registrars-Davy Registrar Services of Pittsburgh and Scott Quality Systems Registrars Inc. of Wayland, Massachusetts. The newly enlarged NTS-CS will move its headquarters to a new location in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Accredited by both the Registrar Accreditation Board and the Dutch Council for Accreditation (RvA), NTS-CS provides third-party registration services for the ISO 9000 series, QS-9000 and AS9000.

"We saw an opportunity to grow," explains Richard Dunne, NTS-CS's president, in describing the transaction. "We made a commitment to our registration business."

With the acquisition comes a host of new opportunities for the company, relates Dunne. The company added 170 new clients to nearly 150 original clients. NTS-CS's scope will also expand its markets into such areas as paper products and railway transportation. Stephen Keneally, president of Davy Registrar Services and Scott Quality Systems Registrars, will work with NTS-CS's management team in a business development role.

Dunne believes that his company's current and new registration clients will be well-served by the enlarged company. NTS-CS expects to pursue another acquisition within the next year, he adds.

"I believe there is going to be a consolidation of the registrar marketplace," says Dunne. He predicts that large companies will predominate, due to the nature of the business. "It's hard to be a mom-and-pop organization in this business."

For more information, contact NTS-CS at telephone (800) 988-2687 or visit the company's Web site at www.nts-cs.com .

The student quality circle movement has taken another stride forward with the start-up of a student-based quality circle on the Internet. The Internet circle is known as "NET sqcc Don Dewar," named for the quality circle pioneer and president of QCI International (publisher of Quality Digest). He met with the quality circle's members during a recent visit to India.

The Web quality circle's objective is to bring together circle members-from various parts of the world-on the second and fourth Sunday of every month to identify, analyze, investigate and solve quality-related problems. The site will address issues including problem-solving techniques, teamwork, career counseling, leadership skills, information technology and global vision. Quality experts from around the world, including Andre Lim, Hans Muller, Matthew Braunstein Vlodrop and Karen Holt, will help moderate the discussions.

The SQCC (Students Quality Control Circles) site was conceived and launched by Prakash Chandra Bihari, a mechanical engineer with Indian Railways. Student-level quality circles have been a pet project of Bihari's for some time. For many years, he has mentored student circles at the CMS Degree College in Lucknow, India, where-under the leadership of Principal Vineeta Kamran-quality circles flourish at grade school, high school and college levels.

Visit the quality circle site at members.tripod.com/sqcc/index.htm .

SME, ASME Explore Merger

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers are considering a closer collaborative relationship through a potential merger. In their March meetings, both organizations' governing boards agreed to this objective.

Phil Trimble, SME's executive director, says that for several years he and ASME Executive Director David Beldon have discussed the proposition of merging their two organizations. The reason? "The disciplines involved are getting much closer in the real world than ever before," explains Trimble.

Both ASME and SME offer a wide range of conferences, courses and clinics in similar but slightly different areas. If the two organizations merged, the likely result would be enhanced educational opportunities and other member services, says Trimble. The new organization would include nearly 200,000 engineering professionals.

Members of both organizations have so far supported the idea, notes Trimble. "The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive from both sides," he states.

A number of task forces have been appointed to consider the merger. These groups currently are tackling the logistical questions related to organization services, functions and infrastructures. Once the committees have looked at the merger carefully, they will make their recommendations.

A final decision won't be made any time soon, cautions Trimble. "This is an extremely large undertaking," he says. "We're going to attack it in a very systematic way. It may take a year or more to make a decision."

For more information and updates on the proposed merger's progress, visit SME's Web site at www.sme.org or ASME at www.asme.org .

Final ISO 9000:2000 Document
Expected Late Next Year

If the revision process for ISO 9000:2000 goes according to the International   Organization for Standardization's current schedule, a final document should be ready for publication in the fourth quarter of 2000.

Currently, the second committee drafts of the standard are in circulation for approval by experts participating in their development, says a recent ISO report. The approval process will continue until August 1; ISO expects the standard to move into the draft international standard development stage during the final months of 1999. Final publication would then follow within the year.

The Year 2000 revisions consist of ISO 9000 (quality fundamentals and vocabulary), ISO 9001 (quality management systems-requirements), which consolidates the current ISO 9001/2/3 into a single document, and ISO 9004 (quality management systems-guidelines for performance improvement).

Due to worldwide interest in ISO 9000, the revisions' committee drafts-normally used only as internal documents-are available to interested parties through various ISO national member institutes (but not from the ISO Central Secretariat). The ISO TC 176 subcommittee, the body responsible for the ISO 9000 family, offers a comments template for the revised standard on its Web site, www.bsi.org.uk/iso-tc176-sc2 .

TC 176 also will provide guidance for users on transition planning. A draft of this guidance should be ready to circulate for comment within the committee this month. Upon approval, the guidance document will become available to the public.

For more information, visit ISO's Web site at www.iso.ch .

Six Tips
for Satisfying
Telephone
Customers

For all the growing importance of the Internet and e-mail, the telephone remains a primary source of customer contact in organizations.

Yet telephones also continue to present unique pitfalls. How many times have you experienced bad customer service over the telephone? Or how many times have you received a call and not known how to respond to questions?

There is help for those situations. Telephone Doctor Nancy Friedman has a plan for satisfying callers and boosting employee morale. "Using a few of these tips will raise your awareness of how to increase customer satisfaction," assures Friedman.

The six tips are:

 Smile. Smile before you answer the phone and, especially, before you know who it is. It's important that every caller gets your smile.

 Assure callers that they've reached the right place. This needs to be said and done before you ask for any information, especially credit card numbers, names, etc.

 Be a good listener. This takes practice. Listening is an art, not a science. If possible, find a good listening course to help you hone this very important skill.

 Use buffers. If you need to ask several questions to gain more information, a good buffer might be, "Mr. Jones, so that we can give you exactly what you need, I'll need to ask a few questions." This prepares the caller for the questions, rather than making them feel bombarded by one question after another.

 Take your time. Rushing threatens callers. Even though you may need to take as many calls as possible, you should never sacrifice quality for quantity.

 Stay in control. Sometimes, callers wander off onto another subject. One way to keep them on track: Remind them of the reason they called, and say you're eager to help.

For more information, visit The Telephone Doctor's Web site at www.telephonedoctor.com or call (800) 882-9911.