In the same year AT&T's long distance division won America's Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award." ("USA Today," 1994, p. 01) AT&T's TQM philosophy made it the first corporation to win these two awards. Prior to 1990 Power Systems provided equipment for only its parent company AT&T. Power Systems was a lackluster division of AT&T that reported losses in numerous quarters. .
As the scope of AT&T and the business as a whole changed the Power Systems to be able to survive on its own. No longer losses would be tolerated, if the work could not be completed in a cost-effective manner the division would be sold and the work would be given to another outsourcer. A.M. (Andy) Guarriello, Vice President & COO of Power Systems, was given the job of implementing TQM. Guarriello along with Power Systems management team launched the Dallas Vision project, an initiative involving physical, organizational, and philosophical changes that soon led to the adoption of Total Quality Management as the management system for the future. Power Systems consolidated several of its locations into several small internal business units. .
These units would become to foundation that Power Systems operated on. Each unit is given the resources to develop, engineer, manufacture, and its products. Functions such as human resources finance, marketing, and sales are provided by smaller organizations developed to support the internal units. Power Systems Dallas unit was completely redesigned. This 900,000 square foot facility was rearranged into what AT&T calls focused factories (Larry, Madelyn, & Watson, 1998). Each focused factory has the capability to accept incoming material, manufacture, and ship finished products. This layout was designed much within the guidelines of the Japanese JIT system. Power Systems took the Japanese approach to TQM and modified to fit the AT&T culture.
The TQM criteria developed within Power Systems were selected to ensure the company's ongoing focus on high standards for customer orientation, process excellence, employee involvement and continuous improvement.
