That figure represents cost savings from smarter use of our materials, more efficient use of our assets and equipment and improvements in our processes. We view productivity as having two major components performance and proficiency. Performance is the present, operating our equipment and processes at maximum design capabilities by people fully trained to execute at high levels of performance.
Proficiency is our future, turning tomorrow s technology into today s standards.
It is an attack on cycle time, materials and process capability, creating new ways of doing business in a complete and expeditious manner by the best engineers in the industry. This combination keeps us focused on continuous improvement today and tomorrow. Many of these productivity projects involved partnering with our suppliers, a powerful way to leverage our engineering resources with the capabilities of our best suppliers. For example, we worked with two leading chemical manufacturers to reformulate compounds for jacket and insulation materials for rubber industrial and control products and to optimize compound use in our outside voice and data products. With another supplier, we developed a new process to utilize a better and lower cost fiberglass technology to improve telecommunications aerial drop wire.