TL 9000 (Telecommunication System Quality Certification)

TL 9000 is a sector specific certification of quality for telecommunication industry. It was initiated by a group of service providers in 1996 and later a forum named “Quality Excellence for Suppliers of Telecommunications (QuEST)” was formed to regulate telecommunication industry specific requirements throughout the world and throughout the telecommunication supply chain.

TL 9000 is defined by two documents:

• TL 9000 Requirements Handbook, which includes the full text of ISO 9001 requirements and telecom specific requirements for hardware, software and services.
• TL 9000 Measurements Handbook containing measurement requirements related with hardware, software and services that must be reported to QuEST forum for benchmarking purposes.

Reports on defect tracking and other measurements are accumulated by TL 9000 compliant facilities of certified organizations.

Unlike other sector specific certification e.g. TS16949, there is no requirement in TL 9000 to perform value added manufacturing to obtain certification thus it can be used by manufacturers as well as service providers.