Service of Manufacture and Supply
The manufacture of reliable, standardized telephone apparatus is a major responsibility of another Bell System unit, the Western Electric Company. It supplies to the operating companies telephone equipment of high quality at reasonable prices.
Western Electric also buys for the operating telephone companies supplies that it does not itself produce. Since large quantities are required, this arrangement results in important economies.
Western Electric speeds delivery to the telephone companies of the right equipment and materials, and the right time, from stocks maintained in distributing houses from coast to coast.
Also, specially trained western Electric forces install for the Bell companies most of the complicated central office equipment required to connect all parts of the telephone system.
Experience has proved the great value of centering these responsibilities in an organization that works as a unit of the System toward the same goals as the telephone companies—a service steadily improving and increasing in value to more and more people.
One of many assembly operations in making Bell telephones at a Western Electric plant in Indianapolis. One-fifth of these sets are now produced in colors.