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.
[Illustration: _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._]