Employee Information Guide

Thoroughbred Quality:
The roadmap to exceptional customer service

To fulfill the promise of safe, efficient and reliable service, every employee of Norfolk Southern must work more creatively than ever to meet customer expectations. The challenge is to prepare for a more competitive future by providing quality service - from every corner of the company.

In 1991, Norfolk Southern launched its Thoroughbred Quality process to focus on meeting and exceeding customer expectations through continuous improvement, based on individual accountability and initiative. Today, two new watchwords are flexibility and inventiveness. These are imperatives in a rapidly changing marketplace.

Thoroughbred Quality Management (TQM) is designed to follow the lead of Norfolk Southern's successful safety process by incorporating the principles of quality management into daily activities. TQM is based on six principles:

• We must be customer-driven, both externally and internally.
• We must develop the attitude that meeting customer expectations has top importance.
• We must respect people and their ability to contribute to improvement.
• We must understand that improvement includes everyone, in all parts of the organization.
• We must place major emphasis on prevention and problem-solving work.
• We must bring employees into the decision-making process.

Norfolk Southern's commitment to meeting our customer's expectations is further demonstrated through the registration of eight key business processes to the globally recognized ISO 9001:2000 standard. This international "seal of approval" requires that we measure our customer's perception of our service and seek to continually improve our processes. NS has trained over two hundred employees in Six Sigma problem solving methodology to focus on process improvements and is committed to making Six Sigma, "the way we work."

By combining the best thinking and practices of Conrail and NS under the Thoroughbred Quality banner, Norfolk Southern can lead the industry in customer service, while setting standards for other industries to aim to achieve.