Manufacturing Industry

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Manufacturing Industry

Manufacturing Industry

Manufacturing companies need to localize their product manuals, brochures, service manuals, etc. As these materials contain highly specialized contents and are used a lot, their localization quality often affects product sales and after-sales service to a certain extent.

iLen's experience in carrying out localization for the manufacturing industry came from years of serving Global 500 corporations. In the process, we have created translation memories containing millions of words, as well as glossaries that have been examined and approved by industry experts. We have built an accurate, highly utilized knowledge base in this area. To let our translators be more knowledgeable in this area, we have subscribed to machinery magazines and given them courses on national standard machinery terminology. As a result, we have a team of high caliber translators who are specialized in this industry.

Content We Localize
  • Agricultural Machinery
  • Crane
  • Engine
  • Generator
  • Leather and Fur Processing
  • Marine Machinery
  • Numerically Controlled Machine
  • Road Construction Machinery
  • Shield Machine
Quality Assurance in Mechanical Translation

Quality Assurance in Mechanical Translation

Machinery is a common subject matter in the localization industry. We have been involved in machinery localization for years, with products ranging from small watches, production line equipment, industrial and agricultural machinery, cars, and even giant machinery such as offshore drilling rigs and shield tunneling machines. Faced with such a wide variety of machinery, how can we constantly deliver high-quality translation with relatively fixed resources?

Mechanical Translation Team - Personnel Selection

We have always adopted a strict recruitment policy for selecting talented employees who meet the needs of the company's development. As mechanical manufacturing is a science and engineering discipline, we give priority to translators with a science and engineering background or translators with some mechanical translation experience. However, interest is the best teacher, and anyone interested in machinery can also be trained as a backup translator. Over the years, we have established a stable mechanical translation team with extensive experience.

Translation Pain Point 1 - Terminology

There are so many names for all kinds of mechanical parts, and even the same part has a different name in a different type of machine. Terminology management is therefore very important to the success of mechanical translation. We maintain terminology databases on a per-client basis and categorize them according to machinery type. In this way, we maintain a client-oriented personalized service and also enable cross reference between the same or similar mechanical subject matters. To increase the knowledge of our translators, we also subscribe to magazines in the mechanical manufacturing industry and help translators learn about national standard terms.

Translation Pain Point 2 - Accuracy

Since mechanical translation isn't as demanding with regard to language structure and creativity, the most common type of error is one of comprehension. These are mainly caused by an inadequate understanding of how the machinery operates. Fortunately, a machine is a physical object, so we can usually find visual references, such as photos, drawings, videos and presentations on websites. These visual references can help us understand how the machine operates and thereby understand the meaning of source sentences properly.

Translation Essential Skill - Research

Even though our translators have a science and engineering background and are experienced in mechanical translation, every new project presents a new challenge. This often means translators need to use their research skills to find useful information. The materials provided by clients, relevant websites and search engines like Google are good sources for research. Expert use of these resources is a critical skill for translators, such as choice of search keywords and using wildcards. Even more important for mechanical translation is the ability to evaluate the credibility and authority of the source, which may require the translators to apply their science, engineering and mechanical knowledge, as well as keen vision and judgment.
Project Background

Our client was a world leader in the manufacturing of construction machinery, mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, and industrial gas turbines. The company needed localization for their website, technical documents (equipment operation and maintenance manuals), and marketing and training materials (news releases, internal e-training materials, etc.).

  • Challenges
  • Solutions
  • Result
  • The client had broad and technically sophisticated product lines. The corresponding localization had to cover a wide range of expertise, including mechanical engineering documents, logistics, materials, warehouse management documents, and financial and legal documents. The variety of demands required both strong domain expertise and a comprehensive cross-functional knowledge base.
  • The client had a unique way of presenting itself compared to other companies in the same industry.
  • The client had extremely high quality standards. They performed internal or third-party quality reviews on every delivery batch and sent the feedback to us for confirmation before approving the final release.
  • The client's instructions were complicated, including detailed style guides and strict quality review standards. On top of these, there were also unwritten rules.
  • The client imposed special requirements on CAT tools, which increased operational difficulty.
  • The project workload was often concentrated in short periods of time.
  • Processing the multimedia materials required special equipment and technical expertise in dubbing and video mixing.
  • We recruited and trained professionals based on the client's localization needs.
  • The project team received training on the heavy machinery industry, including video learning sessions, and subscriptions to industry journals which enhanced understanding of the client's industry.
  • Key staff members were designated as language experts to answer questions raised by team members in the course of the project.
  • Translation memories and glossaries were updated and shared regularly to increase translation accuracy and consistency.
  • Final approved versions of the documents reviewed by the client were analyzed to learn the client's unique style and undocumented rules. This information was added to, or updated in, the translation memory and glossary.
  • Designated team members familiarized themselves with the CAT tools adopted by the client, so as to handle high work volumes within tight schedules.
  • A specialized multimedia production team was formed along with a team of dubbing experts to meet the client's requirements.

Through effective communication we were able to meet all of the client's demands and help the client address a variety of localization issues. As a result, iLen were among the client's preferred vendors over the past five years of cooperation. We are now their number one preferred vendor.
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