Digital business telephones — Project laser

In enhancing its 8400-series digital telephones used with the DEFINITY® private branch exchange (PBX), the Audio Display Terminals team decided to address simultaneously the challenges of reducing product design time and costs, and increasing manufacturing throughput and product reliability. In response to market management, the team — consisting of market management, research and development (R&D), and manufacturing in Lucent Technologies' Business Communications Systems (BCS) Business Unit — also needed to ensure that DEFINITY system customers could easily interchange the redesigned products with the earlier telephone sets, stipulating that the look and operation of the new products remain the same as before. The result was an initiative known as Project Laser, which implemented specific product improvements based on customer input, competitors' features, and three fundamental technology strategies. The design of the product line was optimized to support the new manufacturing process in the company's Shreveport, Louisiana, factory, and component integration was refined to provide future application flexibility. This paper discusses the Project Laser initiative, a breakthrough undertaking for BCS.