By Deepti Arora,
Vice President of Quality and Executive Board Member, NSN
Complex
network infrastructures, a shortage of engineers skilled in cutting-edge
technologies, and demand for fast-paced service deployment, are making it
increasingly appealing for network operators to tap into additional resources
and talent through outsourced managed services. Yet, the moment an operator
considers leveraging a global service delivery model, the issue of how to
deliver quality becomes a concern.
“How do we ensure a
consistent customer experience when delivered by people across so many time
zones and organizations?” How can we keep the lid on costs while managing so
much complexity? How do we protect the privacy of our company’s operational and
customer data with so many touch points across the globe?”
Best-in-class quality management is fundamental
When taking on these
challenges, best-in-class quality management systems are important for
achieving the outcomes operators and suppliers strive for. Adherence to global
multi-site quality management (ISO 9001) ensures clear processes are defined
and a regular rhythm of discipline is implemented for all employees.
Environmental systems management (ISO 14001) is designed to help understand,
manage and reduce environmental impact, and also leads to operational
efficiencies in many cases. ISO 27001, an information security management
system (ISMS) standard, addresses information systems with controls across 11 domains
such as information security policy, governance of information security, and
physical and environment security.
To raise the bar further,
the QuEST (Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications) Forum has
created TL 9000 to define quality system requirements for the design,
development production, delivery, installation and maintenance of more products
and services. Common processes and metrics within and between companies ensure
consistency and a basis for benchmarking and continuous improvement.
Nokia Solutions and Networks
(NSN) has made a strategic commitment to quality as a pillar of its
transformation. Integral to these efforts is the commitment to Quality
Management Systems to help drive improvement. This encompasses a
customer-centric closed-loop approach to measuring quality and value, a
rigorous focus on proactively preventing defects, and actively building quality
competence and disciplines amongst employees and with suppliers. NSN is
investing significant senior management attention and dedicated resources to
raising the bar on quality end-to-end for operators and their subscribers.
Global delivery demands a high standard of
quality management
In NSN’s primary
Global Delivery Centers (GDCs) in Portugal and India, and in smaller hubs
around the world, NSN supports more than 550 customers globally, including
remote management of almost one million network elements and approximately 200
million subscribers annually. This means a tremendous volume of data traffic
and network operations and subscriber information. Day-to-day performance
management is a cornerstone for network operations’ business growth and
efficiency. Relentless performance monitoring and the ability to take immediate
action are imperative.
Quality at the
delivery centers means implementing systems and processes to comply with the
highest level of accreditations and certification. Implementation of such standards
is a massive undertaking, involving the education and testing of every
individual at the delivery center. Achieving a ‘zero non-conformity’ audit
result from Bureau Veritas audits, as the GDC Portugal did recently, is an
indicator that NSN team members have adopted the commitment to quality.
Building awareness and training employees within the organization to adhere to
processes and protect information and related assets also goes a long way to
foster customer confidence in network operations and service delivery. The
certification has provided operators with another proof point that their
networks and related information are in safe hands.
A common language for quality accelerates
improvement
After introducing TL
9000, one NSN business line reduced problem reports by 82%. But accelerating
alignment with operators has been one of the greatest benefits of TL 9000.
“With one Asian operator, we were able to use a common TL 9000 metric to
evaluate monthly alarms across different vendors. Together, we were able to
implement changes that improved performance and reduced costs for both of our
companies,” says Scott Schroepfer, Head of Quality for Small Cells/CDMA. A
common language for quality with operators around the globe is allowing NSN to
accelerate improvement actions and collaboration with its customers.
Looking Forward:
Planning for Quality when tapping the Cloud
Beyond managed
services, operators are increasingly exploring cloud-based technology offerings
as a way to completely change their business model. The benefits are
compelling: expanded on-demand network resources through virtualization, faster
innovation cycles for top line growth through leveraging a broader open
eco-system, and a greater level of productivity and efficiencies through
automation.
But again, the issue
of how to deliver quality becomes a real concern. Security, resiliency,
availability, and stability can all be impacted negatively when managing and
orchestrating across a myriad of virtual machines on different platforms, all
in a multivendor environment. New complexities associated with the cloud
paradigm will require the right set of tools and a commitment to plan for
quality management from the start.
NSN is working closely on planning for
the network quality requirements of cloud technology with major operators, leading cloud stack vendors such as VMware Inc., and industry forums such as the
OpenStack Foundation and the ETSI Network Functions Virtualization Industry
Specification (NFV) Group and the QuEST Forum. A series of proof of concept
projects have provided the foundation for viable telco cloud by demonstrating
the running of core network software on top of virtualized network
infrastructure. Further tests have shown end-to-end VoLTE deployment readiness in a
telco cloud and verified the automated deployment and elastic scaling of
virtualized network elements, live migration of virtual machines from one
server to another, and recovery from hardware failures.
The conclusion is
this: When operators strive to scale and improve productivity, through managed
services or the cloud, quality cannot be an afterthought. The good news is the
tools, technologies, standards and expertise are increasingly available. Find out more about quality at NSN at http://nsn.com/about-us/company/quality. Learn about the
QuEST Forum’s TL 9000 platform based on ISO 9001 to improve supply chain
management effectiveness and efficiency at http://www.questforum.org.
About the Author
With more than 25 years of
international experience in the telecommunications industry, Deepti Arora is
the Vice President of Quality at Nokia Solutions and
Networks. Deepti has held various roles in quality, business operations,
engineering, sales and general management. She has a reputation of being a
dynamic, results oriented leader with a passion for customer focus, and
continually challenging the status quo. Her strong technology and business
expertise, along with an ability to build high performing global teams has made
Deepti a valued executive in driving organizational success.
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