Quality is Not Expensive...It's Priceless
By Michael Wichert, President

Many changes have taken place in 1998 and one of the most exciting is that our company has taken on the challenge of becoming ISO 9002 Certified. This will bring L.A. Xpress into a total quality management environment. We engaged the services of Total Quality Management Systems of Montreal, Canada to help guide our company through the process to become certified.

Our mission is to be the leading provider of Quality Transportation Services in California through continuous training and innovation.

This process will start from the bottom up. We have many talented and qualified people who will make this dream a reality through their contributions of new ideas and quality training programs, which will be developed and implemented at all levels of this company. Every individual in this company will be included as part of this team. Each individual will have an equal opportunity to make our company number one and advance to a higher position. We have always tried to promote from our existing employees, rather than to hire from the outside, and through this ISO 9002 process I feel that we will give an even greater opportunity to our employees.

Quality is our first priority and everything else is secondary. Our commitment to Total Customer Satisfaction through the use of quality principles, concepts and technologies is the difference between L A Xpress and our competition.

The person who has taken on the task of heading up our "ISO 9002 Team" is Les Nettles, Vice President of Operations. Any questions or comments that you may have can be directed to Les at the South Gate office.

The L.A. Xpress "Book of Knowledge"

A great big "Thank You" to René Peters, A.V.P. in our South Gate office. Due to René's efforts, our first "Book of Knowledge" was published in August. This book contains everything from operations information, point lists, special instructions for customer accounts, operations procedure updates, loss prevention guidelines, approved company forms and rate and tariff information. René has worked long and hard to make this book a reality. Great job and Thank You !

New Cal DMV Rules to be Enforced

When the California Department of Motor vehicles (DMV) took over the responsibility of licensing of motor carriers from the California PUC this past year, the former Cat-T numbers assigned by the PUC were replaced by the new "CA" numbers assigned by the California Highway Patrol (CHP).

Effective January 1, 1998 motor carriers, except household goods carriers who are still subject to PUC regulation, were required to remove the old Cal-T numbers from their vehicles and replace them with the new "CA" numbers. Carriers were given a grace period of several months before the CHP began to enforce the new requirement.

Well, the grace period is apparently over. The CHP is actively enforcing the requirement for vehicle marking and is, reportedly, citing and fining carriers $100 if the old Cal-T number is not removed from the vehicle.

If you have any questions about how this effects your business, the regulations governing the requirements for vehicle marking are contained in the California Vehicle Code Section 34507.5. Vehicle Code books are available for purchase at DMV offices.

Mission Statement Winners

Mike Wichert, President of L.A. Xpress, proved he was serious about having the employees learn and remember our Mission Statement. As Mike went about his normal busy schedule, he asked the employees that he came in contact with if they could recite the Mission Statement for $50.00. Congratulations to the following employees (I'm sure there will be more); Jeff Ibarra, Peg Vesprini, Jan Meyer, Laura Rodriguez and Juan Cantellops. Gene Stephens, Corporate Operations Analyst

L.A. Xpress Moves to Improve Quality Management

As the demand for "just in time" deliveries becomes more crucial to our customers, the need for Total Quality Management has become a necessary part of providing the services that our customers expect. L.A. Xpress has made a commitment to excellence and a substantial part of achieving our goal has been to institute new monitoring systems. We recently moved Gene Stephens into a newly created position of "Corporate Operations Analyst". From this position, Gene will conduct internal audits, daily service level reviews and handle special projects to improve service. Gene will also assist in the creation and running of our training programs.

L.A. Xpress started this program to enhance our work in obtaining our ISO 9002 Certification. This certification will place L.A. Xpress on the leading edge of Total Quality Management in our industry. L.A Xpress has already added innovations such as EDI capability and the digital imaging system to provide our customers with the best possible service. These new programs work together to keep L.A. Xpress a true leader in providing Quality Transportation Services.

Telephone Scam Alert

The first of two scams that we heard about goes like this. Someone calls and claims to be a "technician" working on your phone lines. They ask you to dial 9, 0, #. This gives the scam artist access to your phone lines and allows them to call all over the world at your expense. This actually happened at our South Gate office. Kathy Reed, our top notch receptionist, got a call from a man who ask her to help him check our lines by pressing the numbers. She ask him for his name and identification and told him that to her knowledge there was no work being done to our phone lines. The scam artist quickly hung up. Our telephone representative told us, "Don't ever press 9, 0, # on your telephone for anyone".