For more than 34 years, DTCC has developed a mastery of core skills in clearance and settlement. Now, as financial markets diversify and customers operate globally, our aim is to be an innovator of new services. But how, in doing so, can a company meet the increasing demands of customers and maintain high levels of quality?

At DTCC, the answer is to use several concurrent quality improvement methodologies that, when integrated, provide the company with a powerful quality management toolkit. These tools, which help to streamline processes and develop new business practices using a customer-centric, metrics-driven approach, include:

• Six Sigma: a data-driven methodology that strives for near-perfection to deliver world-class performance, reliability, and value to our customers
• Kaizen: a set of principles to facilitate rapid improvement in all aspects of the organization
• Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI): an internationally recognized collection of best practices and standardized processes that companies follow to gain better control over their software development process and
• The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL): a customizable framework of best practices that offers guidance and techniques to align technology services with business requirements.

DTCC has built quality into its corporate DNA, with enterprise-wide strategies that allow us to respond to the increasingly competitive and globalizing financial marketplace.

In addition, DTCC sponsors the Financial Services Business Transformation (FSBT) Roundtable. Launched in January 2008, the FSBT Roundtable's main objective is to provide a forum for Reengineering, Quality and Business Improvement professionals.

How has Quality and Process Excellence Evolved at DTCC?

In 2001, DTCC initiated a program that would formalize the use of standardized metrics, teamwork, and shared learning in order to achieve the company's customer-driven mission. The company established a Quality office staffed with quality leaders cultivated primarily from internal hires – people with insiders' knowledge of how DTCC worked and, perhaps more importantly, how it could improve.

Simultaneously, DTCC formed a Quality Council comprised of senior officers from across the organization to oversee the program, set objectives in tandem with our corporate mission and goals, oversee the large-scale quality initiatives for implementation and champion the concept of quality, ensuring it would permeate every facet of the organization.

By 2004, DTCC rolled out the Balanced Business Scorecard, which uses specific metrics to gauge the company's progress toward goals and in implementing key processes, and had advanced its internationally-recognized CMMI certifications. By 2006, DTCC had achieved CMMI Level 3 certification in several process areas, and had adopted a number of key processes from the ITIL framework.

The accomplishments of DTCC's Six Sigma teams earned the company a Global Six Sigma award in 2007 following the launch of the company's Process Excellence program. The award for Best Achievement of Six Sigma in Service and Transactional Environments, given at the Worldwide Convention and Business Forum Summit, recognized DTCC for its use of Six Sigma methodologies to streamline new customer connectivity and activation processes offered by DTCC's regulated subsidiaries. DTCC was also distinguished as a finalist in the Financial Services category for the company's dematerialization project. The 2007 winning project had also won the annual 2006 DTCC Chairman's Award for Quality.

A look ahead

DTCC continues to advance its use of Six Sigma methodologies, as well as to apply CMMI and ITIL to an increasing number of its systems and processes. DTCC has now achieved full Level 3 appraisal against the CMMI to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of software development. This milestone makes DTCC the first U.S.-domiciled financial services institution to achieve enterprise-wide CMMI Level 3 certification.

At DTCC, the culture of quality is reflected in the company's customer-first mindset, bold aspirations and high level of staff capabilities, all of which contribute to helping the company's customers compete and succeed in today's ever-changing marketplace.