TL 9000 is a quality management practice designed by the QuEST Forum in 1998. It was created to focus on supply chain directives throughout the international telecommunications industry, including the USA domestically. As with ISO/TS 16949 for the automotive industry and AS9000 for the aerospace industry, TL 9000 specializes the generic ISO 9000 and ISO 9001 to the needs of one industrial sector, which for TL 9000 is now the information and communications technology industry (ICT)—extending from service providers through ICT equipment manufacturers through the suppliers and contractors and subcontractors that provide electronic components & software components to those ICT equipment manufacturers.
TL 9000 is defined by two documents:
- TL 9000 Requirements Handbook, currently at release 5.0, which includes the full text of ISO 9001-2008
- TL 9000 Measurements Handbook, currently at release 5.0
Extensive reports on defect tracking and other measurements at various levels of granularity are accumulated by TL 9000-compliant facilities of TL 9000 certified organizations by the University of Texas at Dallas, which is the official TL 9000 Administrator. These reports are provided at no additional charge to TL 9000 member companies and for an additional fee to TL 9000 Liaison members and non-members. Generally, these measurement data permit a service provider to compare the defect rates among various equipment manufacturers and against each other.