Case Studies

Project Background

Since it was founded in 1924, the Group has developed into one of Spain’s largest multinational companies and one of the world’s leading operators in the telecommunication sector. With a presence in Europe, Africa and Latin America, the Group is the world’s fifth largest in the sector by market capitalization and fourth largest in terms of the number of users. Through acquisitions of local telecommunication companies, the Group has operations across Europe, including the Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany and the Isle of Man, and has become the leading operator in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru in Latin America.

Challenges

• Specific translation requirements: The document to be translated was a promotional brochure, which required a familiar style and accuracy in telecommunication terms.
• Ongoing revisions of the documents: Prompt reviews on the translation had to be given because the source materials underwent ongoing revision by the client.
• Strict DTP and formatting specifications: As a promotional brochure, the document contained a large number of tables with complex layouts. Moreover, the font, graphics and links were subject to strict specifications, increasing the difficulty of the project.

Solutions

• We carefully selected 3 linguists to form a translation team and appointed a proofreader to ensure accuracy, proficiency and coherence of the final translation.
• We pre-processed the document to save translator’s time and effort when formatting the text layout. The pre-processing allowed linguists to focus on improving translation quality.
• We established a specialized translation memory which recorded every update and maintained term consistency.
• We arranged for an experienced DTP specialist to format the final document according to the client’s DTP specifications.

Conclusion

Through cooperation between the PM, linguists and DTP specialist, we fulfilled all the high quality requirements and won commendations from the client.

Project Background

Rolls-Royce Marine (Shanghai) Limited (which also serves as the product hub for Rolls-Royce’s North East Asia region) has a diverse product portfolio including deck machinery, tunnel thrusters, rudders, controllable pitch propellers, Azimuth thrusters, water jets and stabilizing systems. Rolls-Royce Marine (Shanghai) performed an audit from January 11th to 21st, 2011. The company’s auditors and suppliers attended the conference, and our interpreters provided them with consecutive Chinese and English interpretation.

Challenges

1. Highly specialized terminology: The marine manufacturing field contains a large number of specialized terms, particularly technical terms which required the interpreters to employ rapid learning tactics.
2. Time pressure: The interpreters were required to be familiar with products and their corresponding raw materials’ characteristics, processes and prices, etc in a short period of time.

Solutions

1. Our PM coordinated with our interpreting center to arrange internal tests and selected candidates who met the project requirements to be interviewed by the client.
2. Upon the client’s selection of the interpreters, the coordinator informed the interpreters of the project requirements in detail. During the preparation, the interpreters acquired comprehensive knowledge of the company, familiarized themselves with the general contents of the conference, and learned the technical terms of marine manufacturing.
3. When new products were presented, our interpreters gained more understanding by discussing the products with the client during the audit. Our interpreters performed an excellent and responsible service at the conference.

Conclusion

We demonstrated our outstanding coordination and management capabilities throughout the project. Our client was impressed with our excellent service and high quality.

Project Background and Our Challenges:

We were required to translate Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports of one State of U.S.A. for the period 2002 to 2007. These reports were comprised of 6 PDF documents totaling 300,000 words and contained numerous figures and financial terms. We were required to deliver the documents in batches from the start of the project resulting in a daily workload of 60,000 words. We rarely carry out projects that have such a heavy workload, tight deadline and complex document layouts.

Solutions

Upon confirmation of the project, the account manager, sales department, translation materials department and the resource management department discussed the project and made arrangements according to the project requirements.

• Our sales representative actively contacted the client to receive detailed requirements, formulate the project schedule, control the project process and deal with post-delivery issues.
• During the pre-translation stage, a DTP specialist converted the original documents into .doc files and analyzed and changed their layout and format, and then in the post-translation stage recovered and checked the layout and format. A TM engineer was deployed to analyze the repetition rate using TM tools and export the TMs of previous related projects to perform a pre-translation.
• The project manager selected translators, distributed tasks and tracked the translation process.

Linguists from the financial and legal translation team were appointed to review and approve translations and provide solutions for term consistency.

Conclusion

Even though 13 linguists were involved in this project, consistency of the translation was properly maintained because all linguists were connected to the same TM and they communicated effectively via instant messenger to resolve any issues aroused. Through the active cooperation of all the linguists, we guaranteed both quality and timely delivery.

Project Background

It is an international travel website with local news and information about tourist attractions in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Bangkok, Mumbai and Singapore.

Challenges

We were required to translate the English content into Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese, which included all the articles posted on the website, as well as large amounts of news that kept pouring in. Moreover, the client required projects to be submitted in certain quantities within tight deadlines. The website consists of 6 sections – Life, Eating, Drinking, Shopping, Playing and Escape. Our linguists were therefore required to spend time researching the local names of food, hotels, interests and biographies apart from working on the actual translation. The client required vivid translations that remained faithful to the source. As a result, the original Translation Memory (TM) had to be adapted to specific contexts rather than being used directly.

Solutions

• We assigned the most appropriate linguists for this project, linguists that had a rich knowledge of press releases and extensive translation experience.
• A dedicated TM was set up in our system and updated daily with submissions to ensure a consistent style and wording.
• A Quality Manager was appointed to finalize and debug the translations to avoid any objective errors.

Conclusion

Thanks to the expertise and the hard work of the whole team at MTS, the translation project was delivered on schedule with over 280,000 words. The client was completely satisfied with the results in terms of high quality and prompt delivery.

Project Background

The end client is the world’s leading supplier of radiotherapy equipment and software for treating cancer. The company is also a premier supplier of components including tubes and digital image detectors for medical, scientific, and industrial imaging.

Challenges

We were assigned the English to Japanese translation of equipment manuals including an IFU, Administration Reference Guide and Safety Guide. These materials had to be translated into several languages with the highest level of accuracy. This was a large-scale project with detailed specifications and tight deadlines for many of the subprojects. The reference materials provided were plentiful and closely related to the translation content. Constant reviews, a complex process and prolonged project timeframe posed multiple challenges for the linguists, as these kinds of large projects must go through the following processes: translation, QA report, CLR changes, proofreading, updating ITD, TTX or PASSOLO documents and DTP editing.

Solutions

To enable this large-scale project to go smoothly, we specifically assigned an account manager and a project manager to supervise the whole process from initial evaluation to final delivery. We carefully selected two Japanese translators who have expertise in medical equipment enabling them to read through the reference materials within a short period of time and meet the tight deadlines. In addition, we adopted CAT tools to improve efficiency and ensure consistency of the translation. We developed a sound plan to manage the project schedule. At the order preview stage when the client sets a deadline for the delivery, our PM immediately notified the Japanese translators to reserve enough time for the project. The project started as soon as the contract was confirmed. We kept in touch with the translators so whenever a revision was made to the source material the corresponding translation was updated accordingly.

Conclusion

This project lasted for nearly a year and over 300,000 words were translated in total. The successful completion of this project demonstrated our outstanding project management capabilities. The client commended our service and high-quality translation.

Project Background

Founded in 1927, the end client is one of the world’s leading producers and service suppliers of trucks, buses, construction equipment, engines and drive systems, marine and industrial power systems, as well as aerospace systems. With 25 manufacturing bases spread across 25 countries worldwide, this company has around 76,000 employees globally and sells its products in over 130 markets. The project involves translation of the internal publication of this company for its staff, publishing 6 issues each year in 11 languages including Swedish, English, German, Japanese and Chinese. MTS has been taking on the Chinese translation work for our overseas partner since 2008.

Challenges

• Accuracy: This company’s magazine contains a vast amount of up-to-date information about various industry news and events and the target readers are all industry professionals and experts. Therefore, our team is required to produce highly accurate translations to meet their expectations.
• Expertise: Even though our linguists possess the relevant background, they are still required to check several specialized magazines and other technical content as reference materials. This previous research work was essential in order to deliver the highest quality translation.

Solutions

Considering the difficulty of the project, we assign the on-going translation tasks individually to highly qualified linguists with specific knowledge and expertise in the relevant fields. Account managers communicate with the client to confirm all the glossaries before importing them into a TM. A specialized TM was created to ensure consistency of the terminology and record all the updates. An in-house linguist was also assigned to finish the final polishing, making the translations technically accurate and fluent.

Conclusion

The success of this ongoing translation project would not be possible without the hard work and expertise of our team members and the effective cooperation with all the parties concerned. We have currently translated more than 500,000 words from them and have received very positive feedback and satisfaction from the end client.

Project Background

The end client is a US-managed Fortune 100 healthcare company with a market cap of over US $13 billion, $36.5 billion in revenue, and over 40,000 employees worldwide. The company markets its health insurance services in all 50 US states, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and has international business interests in Western Europe and Asia.

Challenges

From August to October 2012, we handled the translation, editing, proofreading, and DTP of four 64-page summaries of benefits documents, four 48-page prescription drug guides, two 14-page provider directories, four 256-page prescription drug guides, and one 372-page provider directory into Traditional Chinese for the client’s healthcare customers/members. The total word count was over 120, 000 words. This was a project for which we were required to be qualified regarding healthcare terminology and we should ensure a high consistency in style and terminology within a single project as well as across a series of projects with a similar theme. Final deliverables would be Traditional Chinese InDesign and PDF files that match the English PDF files.

Solutions

Following the client’s requirements, we aligned the MS Word files (previous translations done by other agencies) and created a translation memory (TM) for Trados. As a second step, we translated the PDF files using the TM we created from the Word files. Since these files were very similar, translation consistency was imperative. In addition, we needed to extract the text from the PDF files and translate it in MS Word. The third stage of this project was to format the files we translated in InDesign using the PDF files as our source. The client provided us with an InDesign template that we had to modify it to match these PDF files. There were no current InDesign files for these PDF files. The templates were from last year’s versions that were a slightly different format. Once we got through one of the InDesign documents, we had to build the remaining three from the first one we created to save some time. After we received the client’s revisions, our translators and technical staff followed the instructions to edit all the InDesign files and update the TM, ensuring that all the technical terms were consistent.

Conclusion

Thanks to our group of qualified and experienced project managers, translators and technical experts, we were able to successfully meet the client’s needs and expectations.

Project Background

The end client is a major British airline serving over 35 destinations worldwide with a huge popularity and numerous international awards. The airline has pioneered a range of innovations setting new standards of service, which its competitors have subsequently sought to follow. Despite its growth the service still remains customer driven with an emphasis on value for money, quality, fun and innovation.

Challenges

All files were targeted to both Simplified Chinese (SC) and Traditional Chinese (TC) for Hong Kong. The client was very consistency-sensitive and asked for only one translator to be involved in the translation step, and after the SC files were completed, a linguist from Hong Kong would be responsible for localizing to TC. Due to the tight deadline, we had to work on a rolling basis to ensure both SC and TC could be eventually delivered to the client at the same time. Our partner appointed a dedicated quality manager to thoroughly review all files and return them whenever they found any style or terminology inconsistencies. Revised files were required to be returned in 24 hours, no matter how extensive the revisions were – which meant that our linguists were always on stand by. The project included marketing information and related materials about global tourist attractions. Linguists needed to do extensive research before the translation to avoid any cultural misunderstandings. As it was a project mainly adapted for marketing and advertising, the translated content was required to be both compelling and culturally relevant.

Solutions

The translation memory played a key role throughout the whole project while running Trados. The primary linguist from English to SC not only completed the translation and editing, but also communicated directly with the Quality Manager from our partner when necessary. We also appointed one dedicated account manager who was familiar with the project so that she could answer basic questions on her own without consulting the linguists.

Conclusion

As our first project with a major airline company, it was a great opportunity for us to gain experience in this sector. We received very positive feedback from the client who praised our quality standards and fast delivery times.

Project Background

The company has been the world’s premier jeweler and one of America’s first class houses of design. In order to further promote its jewelry products and continue to be an industry leader in 21st century, the company is gradually constructing and developing its websites. The websites are available in English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, French, Japanese and other languages in order to serve customers around the globe. MTS assisted its overseas partners to successfully pass the project’s testing process and then undertook the translation of the website into Traditional Chinese.

Challenges

– Reference Materials Wording: Targeting the Taiwan market, the traditional Chinese translations must be very “local” instead of just simply duplicating the Simplified Chinese version word for word, although the latter was available for those involved to consult. Images: Translated Jewelry names were to be paired with their respective images on the website. In order to translate jewelry product names accurately, the translators had to first access the picture of a particular product by inputting the product code to look into the appearance of the jewelry, this took much more time than the usual process. – Translation Style Faithfulness & Expressiveness: A vivid description had to be found for the jewelry products following consultation of the images and reference materials. Expressiveness & Elegance: Product profiles need to be produced in an elegant style without deviating from the facts. – Constantly Updating The client has great expectations: The client continued to send us updated glossaries and instructions based on the partial translations we submitted, and asked us to resubmit the revised translations. On top of this, numerous identical phrases appeared frequently throughout the materials sent to us in rolling batches, making the whole updating process even more complicated. Our task was onerous: Each update affected the wording of our previous translations, as well as those that were undergoing translation and editing, dragging the finished and unfinished translations into a “vicious” cycle of endless editing.

Solutions

Translators: Given the scope of the project and the constant need for ongoing revisions, a few translators, editors and proofreaders with related backgrounds were selected to handle the two major document categories – Product Names and Product Profiles respectively. The proofreaders and editors had to, in principle, be familiar with all of the Tiffany documents so that each project could be carried out and delivered on time. The Use of QA tools: The involvement of QA tools such as X-bench and QA Distiller meant that the language consistency and style was maintained. Communicating effectively with the Client: We communicated with the client’s Project Manager and Editor by phone and E-mail regarding the revisions made by them, discussing and learning from each other, making the Traditional Chinese version of the Tiffany’s website perfect!

Conclusion

MTS completed approximately 150,000 words for the project and won the trust of our client for our professionalism, dedication as well as for our serious attitude towards the work.

About Falco

As a global manufacturer and marketer of magnetic components, Falco is a strategic vendor to major OEMs in the power supply, UPS, industrial metering, electronic ballast, personal computer, and telecommunication industries. Its products include: telecommunications magnetics, LAN magnetics, DC/DC magnetics, power magnetics, power meter current sensors, high voltage transformers, and value added assemblies, including PCB assembly, potting, over-molding, and connector assembly. Falco has production lines in Mexico, China and distribution centers and service stations in over a dozen countries.

About the Project

In an effort to create a unified work environment, a need arose in Falco for multilingual communication to internal staff. Falco turned to us for assistance in adapting manuals, catalogues, correspondence into languages such as Chinese, Spanish, English, and etc. Due to the time-sensitive nature of the project, Falco placed their faith on MTS who then had successfully processed the translation in an expedited manner by their deadline.

MTS provided consultation and localization services to Mentorware, Inc. in its effort to localize the highly popular online learning platform Sun JavaOne Online into Chinese.

About Mentorware

Mentorware is a leading provider of platforms and services for online marketing and learning programs. Mentorware’s offerings include an integrated Internet-based platform/ASP service for delivering and managing conference and seminar content, e-learning courses, and many types of online forums. Mentorware’s customer list includes Sun Microsystems, IBM, Intel, Cisco and Wells Fargo Bank. JavaOne Online features high-end user experience, expanded reach, anytime/anywhere learning, ongoing live events, community features, and 365-day touch with Java developers worldwide. Scheduled to be deployed just 6 weeks after the physical conference, the initial effort involves a custom implementation of Mentorware’s Conference Online platform that supports all the above features, and content development for over 400 online modules.

About the Project

MTS partnered with Mentorware in the whole Chinese localization process, including collaborated project analysis, sample production and testing, drafting of specifications, production, quality assurance, project assessment, maintenance and updates. The project involves millions of words for translation, over a hundred hours of audio recording and editing, and the integration of two hundred thousand lines of transcript with audio and slide presentation into a Mentorware-power Flash application. Within a tight timeline of 6 weeks, MTS successfully localized hundreds of online modules into Chinese. The successful completion of the project has won us reputation and trust from Mentorware, Sun Microsystems and the Chinese Java learning community.

About Hamburg

Hamburg is Germany’s second largest city and economic center in Northern Europe.www.hamburg.de, including its sister site, www.hamburg-tourism.de , is the official website of the Hamburg.

About the Project

MTS and its partner Webcontrade were chosen as the developer of Chinese version of these websites in 2002. The initial effort involved content selection, translation, html coding, graphics adaptation, compatibility and functionality testing. In order to launch the website before such major events as the friendship-exchange activities between German and Chinese governments and the upcoming visit of Hamburg Mayor to her sister city, Shanghai, MTS was given very tight lead-time to complete the project. Nevertheless, MTS’ team of translators, web developers, and graphic designers managed to publish the website in time. Published in July 2002, these two Chinese websites have been well received by both the Chinese community in Europe and those Chinese planning to invest study or tour in Germany. Hamburg is the first city in Europe to have a Chinese language website and places an important role in German-Chinese cultural and economic exchanges.

Project background

In 2010, Bright Dairy announced its acquisition of Synlait, one of the top-five independent dairy-processing companies in New Zealand. This international acquisition is the first case of its kind in the Chinese milk industry.

Challenges

The subject matter and tight deadline for the project meant that a team of linguists made up of efficient translators specialized in financial and legal documents was required. In addition, the client set stringent requirements regarding translation quality and confidentiality. The project mainly covered financial and legal aspects, of which the legal documents included the acquisition agreement, contract for the transfer of intellectual property rights, dairy product off-take agreement, contract assignment agreement and milk supply agreement assurance, water supply and water usage and waste disposal agreements, management agreement, legal due diligence report, company articles of association, and credit and financing agreements. The financial documents contained the term sheet report and indicative financing intention clause.

Solutions

After concluding detailed talks with the client, we assigned very experienced linguists to the project. During the carrying out of the project we set up a proper terminology management system and maintained prompt communication with all parties involved.

• Our sales representative actively contacted the client to receive detailed requirements, formulate the project schedule, control the project process and deal with post-delivery issues.
• During the pre-translation stage, our TM engineer imported the TMs from related projects to perform the pre-translation.
• The project manager selected translators, distributed tasks and tracked the translation process.
• In-house translators from our financial and legal translation team were appointed to review and approve translations and ensure accuracy and coherence.

Conclusion

We demonstrated our outstanding coordination and management capabilities throughout the project and were commended by the client for our excellent service and high quality translation.

Project background

The client is a Swedish government agency responsible for promoting the image of Sweden to the world. In contrast to traditional diplomacy, which focuses on politics and economics, the institute sought to establish cooperation and lasting relations with other countries through strategic communication and exchange in the fields of culture, education and science. In the era of the Internet, its official website had become the main place to promote Swedish culture. With an increased importance placed on the strategic relationship between Sweden and China, it had the intention of setting up a Chinese website. MTS was honored to be chosen from hundreds of candidates to assist our overseas partners.

Challenges

The institute had high expectations for its Chinese website and put forward specific requirements: – Localization: Accuracy was the basic but most important criteria in translating any official texts. Apart from that, the institute insisted achieving a high level of fluency in its Chinese version so that the articles could be targeted at anyone who was interested in Sweden. – Cultural differences: Since Sweden and China have developed from two completely different cultural backgrounds, the institute paid close attention to the issue of cultural differences between the two countries. It required that cultural elements should be translated as comprehensibly as possible. The institute realized that it was a great chance to popularize Swedish culture in China. – CAT tools: The latest version of MemoQ would be used for all the institute’s translations.

Solutions

Based on the above-mentioned requirements and following a comprehensive review, MTS worked out corresponding solutions. – Pre-trans: With the help of the pre-translation department, MTS updated its MemoQ version to 6.2 and trained all the translators to use it. The translators were then able to work well with the tool. – Translation team: According to each translator’s experience and specialty, MTS screened out a qualified translation team with one project manager, two translators and one proofreader. The team would prioritize all projects from the institute. One QA controller was also assigned to double check the accuracy, expressions and tag placement before the final delivery. – Follow-ups: MTS was responsible for any changes or updates relating to translated materials from the institute. Before publishing, MTS would make sure a thorough check of the translated PDF after DTP was done to ensure every word was in the right place.

Conclusion

MTS has successfully managed documents totaling approximately 100,000 words for the institute so far and this number will continue to expand thanks to positive cooperation with the institute, the overseas partner and MTS. MTS is proud to have made a contribution to this exchange between Sweden and China.

About Bühler Group

With over 150 years of experience, Bühler Group, a multinational corporation from Switzerland, is a global market leader in basic food processing, chemical processing engineering and metal die-casting. The group operates in over 140 countries with more than 80 branches, and a global payroll of 7,700. Its sales revenues reached CHF 1.9 billion in the 2008 fiscal year. In mid-2010, the completion of the group’s new English website led to a move to localize the site into Chinese. With experience translating technical documents for the group, MTS passed all the language service provider quality assessment tests, including the technical test, trial translation, and on-the-spot inspection. In October 2010, MTS officially started the localization project.

Challenges

– Guaranteeing excellent translation quality: The client required the translation to be of a very high quality. Therefore, a minimum possible number of qualified translators and proofreaders were to be assigned to the project to enhance the consistency, coherence and accuracy of the translation. – Adjusting to a brand new working platform: Bühler Group’s new website was installed with Reddot (an outstanding content management system), which is capable of translating, updating and maintaining multilingual content when integrated with the computer aided translation solution program produced by Across Language Server (a platform for language resources and translation management). Although MTS had gained experience in carrying out translation projects using the Across platform through working with clients such as KE-COMMUNICATION , we had never before deployed the server at enterprise level. Moreover, because language service providers in Mainland China rarely adopt Across as their working platform, translators scarcely know how to use this highly integrated translation tool which is efficient in process control. – Managing large-scale and complex projects: The client required us to go through a complex project process that included system testing, translating 300,000 English words, proofreading and revising, updating and maintaining the translation memory system, and quality control, all within three months. During the process, effective communication was established between a number of departments in MTS, Bühler’s Switzerland headquarters and in the group’s Chinese branch.

Solutions

– A professional project team According to the client’s quality and process control criteria, we assigned the project to a special team composed of qualified staff selected from various departments. Over the three months, a business manager was especially appointed to keep in touch with his counterpart in Bühler Group. The project manager was accountable for task distribution and process control. Linguists appointed by the client worked on the translation and proofreading, and experienced technicians were responsible for managing and maintaining the Across Language Server. Constructive conversations were held between senior managers from both sides to work out win-win solutions regarding key issues and scheduling. – Reliable technology 1. MTS purchased and deployed the Across Language Server 5.0 as soon as an agreement had been reached with Bühler Group. 2. MTS offered instructions for translation and project management using Across to project staff including the business manager, translators, proofreaders and project manager. A detailed instruction manual for the tool was also made. All this pre-prepared information was essential for the successful execution of the project. 3. The Across system, with its strict process control management, has always been unique among translation software in the industry. A new version was released whilst our project was being carried out. Consequently, both sides were confronted with a range of problems resulting from the adoption of the new version. Throughout the project, MTS technicians helped the client solve problems with the software configuration and its application. Their expertise and dedicated attitude won them the praise of the client’s senior managers.

Conclusion

The localization of Bühler Group’s website was completed in February 2011. The project not only enabled Bühler Group’s brand image to be promoted effectively to a global market, but also won MTS high praise and the complete trust of the client. In March 2011, Bühler Group and MTS formally signed a long-term contract based on the new working platform, which relies on the mature project team, and depends on greater cooperation and a profound mutual understanding.

Project Background

The corporation, a world leader in advanced technology, is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of advanced electronic and electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and materials, power systems, industrial and social infrastructure systems, and household appliances. The company wanted the materials in its annual Skills Competition to be translated from Japanese into Chinese, including various pieces of release information, the introduction to the preparation work and contents of the competition. MTS helped its overseas partner to successfully pass the project testing process and then handled the entire translation, proofreading and editing after the project was finally confirmed.

Challenges

The translations needed to be prepared to the highest level of accuracy and consistency in a fluent and attractive style. The ideal translator would not only have to have a strong mechanical background and extensive knowledge, but would also need to be very skilled in language expression.

Solutions

– We arranged for the best linguists with mechanical expertise to carry out the translations. – Two expert linguists were assigned to polish the translation as an extra step in addition to the normal TEP (translation, editing and proofreading). – Computer aided translation (CAT) tools were used throughout the whole process while a TM was created for the project so that consistency could be maintained and cost savings could be realized. – Documents were delivered on a rolling basis to ensure that we could set aside time for the client’s comments, and so that those suggestions could be continuously applied to the translations.

Conclusion

This project lasted a few months with a total workload of over 100,000 characters. MTS exceeded expectations by completing the translations perfectly and ahead of schedule.

Project Background

The client is a United States national social insurance program administered by the United States federal government that guarantees access to health insurance for Americans aged 65 or older and younger people with disabilities, as well as people with end-stage renal disease.

Challenges

From September to October 2012 we did translation and DTP for a series of files totaling more than 60,000 words for the program that was outsourced from our partner translation agency. – During the preflight stage, considerable amount of fuzziness and repetition were analyzed and pre-translated to facilitate the whole process. – Numbers¬ – the insured amounts, proportion of coverage, dates, etc. were extremely important in this project. The client repeatedly emphasized that there could not be any numerical errors. – The DTP required a large number of pictures, fonts, logos, etc. The materials provided by the client for DTP were relatively outdated; therefore we sometimes needed to make adjustments to make them more appealing. – The DTP review process was conducted after the DTP was finished and it took a lot of time due to the large workload.

Solutions

Since the project involved translation, editing, DTP and P-DTP proofreading, we scheduled the whole process at the very beginning and intentionally reserved several days for any unforeseen situations that might arise. To make this work, we needed to have 3 typesetters working on the DTP. It was actually very sensible as we ran into trouble when converting a 200+ page file back to INDD format due to some missing tags; it took us 2 days to resolve the problem. After the DTP was completed, we had staff review the files to make sure the numbers were all correct.

Conclusion

We finally kept every promise we had made at the beginning—delivering on time and without any typos or numerical errors. The client not only spoke highly of our translation quality but also appreciated the beautiful graphic design work provided by our DTP team.

Project background

Established in 1856, the group headquartered in London is the world’s largest manufacturer of arthroscopy products, the second largest manufacturer of advanced trauma management products, the third largest manufacturer of trauma and clinical physiotherapy products and the fourth largest manufacturer of orthopedic reconstruction products. Listed on both the London and the New York stock exchanges, the company has branches in 32 countries and its products are sold in over 90 countries around the world. The project required training materials composed of 20 courses for the group’s endoscopy salespersons to be translated from English into Spanish and Simplified Chinese.

Challenges

• Only linguists who were knowledgeable about medical equipment, especially endoscopes, and had expertise in marketing could deal with the large quantity of technical terms and ensure the accuracy of the translation.
• The client required that Trados was the only translation tool used, and that deliveries contained all project files including drafts, reviews and edited documents. Therefore the linguists participating in this project, from translators to proofreaders, needed to be skilled at using Trados.

Solutions

• We appointed a PM to choose linguists, arrange and coordinate the project, update the translation memory and check the integrity of the files delivered.
• The PM selected linguists who had expertise in medical equipment and specially appointed a translator from our financial translation team to ensure accuracy of the marketing content in the translations.
• We created and maintained a terminology database and translation memory for the project to ensure term consistency and speed up the translation process.

Conclusion

Our highly qualified translation not only met the requirements of our partner but was also welcomed by the end users in their respective target markets. The client gave our service an excellent rating, setting the foundations for a closer partnership between MTS and the client and long-term cooperation.

Project background

The end client is the world’s leading biopharmaceutical service provider. With a network of more than 27,000 professionals working in more than 80 countries, the company has helped develop or commercialize all of the top 50 bestselling drugs and 9 biological agents on the market. With extensive therapeutic, scientific and analytics expertise, they help biopharmaceutical and health sciences customers navigate the increasingly complex landscape with more predictability to enable better outcomes.

Challenges

– Translation of drug safety documents required high quality and level of accuracy. – It was a large-scale project with detailed specifications and sometimes tight deadlines. – Messy handwritten texts were hard to read and posed multiple challenges for the linguists.

Solutions

– At the order preview stage when the client sent us the files, our business manager evaluated the source files, word count, and requests and coordinated with the client and our own resources to make sure the delivery time could be met. – To enable this series of projects to go smoothly we assigned a project manager to supervise the whole process from the pre-translation evaluation to final delivery. – We carefully selected translators who had good medical knowledge and assigned the projects to specific translators to improve efficiency and ensure consistency of the translation. – We used some software to convert the handwritten texts to Word documents before proceeding with the translation when possible.

Conclusion

This has been an on-going project since 2011 and we have completed many subprojects, for which we have always received great feedback regarding the quality of work.

Project background

Founded in Munich, Germany in 1926, the Group is a globally operating family owned company whose products range from production systems, universal machining centers, stand-alone machines and complex flexible machining systems through to assembly and automation systems and complete production system solutions. Over the past 85 years, the group has successively set up production sites in Germany, Brazil and the U.S. and established sales and service offices in the UK, Mexico, China, South Korea, India and Russia. The group has established cooperative relations with Chinese automobile manufacturers including Shanghai Volkswagen, FAW-Volkswagen, FAW’s Wuxi DEW, Saicgroup, Shanghai GM, Great Wall Motors, and Chery Automobile. We undertook the group’s German to Chinese translation and interpreting projects via our overseas partner.

Challenges

The translation of mechanical engineering material demands translators and interpreters have expertise in this field otherwise they would not understand the numerous technical terms and would eventually fail to achieve the accuracy required. The project required consistency between all project files. Therefore, having a stable linguistic team was absolutely necessary. In addition, linguists had to refer to references and translated materials to achieve consistency when translating documents that were incompatible with CAT tools. Interpreting in this field requires great effort and professional skill. Therefore the interpreters needed to be very familiar with source materials provided by the client.

Solutions

– Translation Only linguists with experience translating in this field were selected to take part in the project. Documents in specific formats underwent pre-translation and post-translation processing to save the time and effort for the translators. Proofreaders performed a terms analysis, sentence pattern analysis and grammar check. They also confirmed with the client the appropriateness of terms and ensured the translation was coherent. – Interpretation Interpreters familiarized themselves with the materials beforehand and contacted the client for information on the required training. During the training session, the interpreters closely collaborated with the client, who expressed the content concisely to the trainees.

Conclusion

All together the GROB project lasted six months. We effectively managed the project and guaranteed high quality translation and interpretation.

Project background

With over one hundred years of service, the Group is one of the world’s leading suppliers of products, systems and services for automobile manufacturing. As a systems supplier, the Group designs and builds paint shops for automobile manufacturing. In addition to this, the group also supplies cleaning and filtration systems for the production of engine and transmission components, as well as balancing systems for vehicle components. The project undertaken by our overseas partner required a German to Simplified Chinese translation of the Group’s conference reports and technical documents, detailing its services and products, which included paint and assembly systems, automatic paint application systems, conveyor systems, and transmission components.

Challenges

First of all, translation of the technical documents requires knowledge and experience in automobile manufacturing. Second, our client added new tasks and references while we were translating the 250,000-word, 114-document project, resulting in a more compressed project schedule. In addition, all documents had to be translated using Trados translation software. The documents of various types and formats contained drawings and un-editable graphics. If Trados were to be used directly, it would have resulted in incomplete translations and increased the difficulty of post-translation processing.

Solutions

– To ensure accuracy and proficiency, we chose linguists who were experienced in automobile-manufacturing translation and skilled in the use of Trados to translate, edit and proofread the documents. – We appointed a customer manager to communicate in a timely way with the client regarding project details, including references and requirements, and to oversee the project. – To deliver translations on time, several linguists collaborated on the project. Drafts were submitted in batches and revised in turn. – To ensure comprehensive translations, we checked through all the documents one by one and manually processed un-editable source materials.

Conclusion

We demonstrated our cooperative capabilities and highly skilled translation services throughout this six-month project. Our client was very satisfied with the excellent translations and on-time deliveries.

Project background

From September 2-3, 2010, SIEMENS held the 2010 annual APAC User Conference in Shanghai. More than 300 people attended the conference during which feedback and improvements were discussed and interactive activities were arranged. MTS provided the conference with simultaneous interpretation services in Chinese, English and Korean.

Challenges and our solutions

The subject matter was highly specialized and included a large amount of medical and medical equipment related terminology. The conference was conducted in three languages and required four interpreters. To guarantee service quality we arranged for a South Korean interpreter experienced in the medical field to perform the English-Korean interpretation.

Unexpected problems

The day before the conference many flights were cancelled due to three typhoons that were simultaneously approaching the coast of China. South Korea was hit by one of the typhoons, resulting in the cancellation of many flights from South Korea. However, the South Korean interpreter overcame these obstacles by transferring flights and still managed to arrive in Shanghai on time and complete the interpretation task. Shanghai MTS assigned four interpreters, four technicians and one project manager to the conference. In order to provide high quality interpretation, we also arranged a meeting between the interpreters, organizers and host the day before the conference.

Feedback

The client was impressed and highly commended Shanghai MTS’s excellent interpreting and comprehensive services.

About the client

Xiamen Jiansong Electrical Appliances Co., Ltd is a subsidiary of Panasonic established in April 1996. Their main products include bread makers, juice machines, electric ovens, induction cookers, coffee makers, automotive air conditioners, ducted air conditioners, and toasters. In 2012, Panasonic launched a translation project for its new automatic bread maker. This multilingual project involved English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese translation as well as DTP. After evaluating many translation companies, Panasonic decided to cooperate with MTS as we stood out for our top quality translation and rich experience in DTP.

Challenges

– Multilingual translation and DTP This project involved translating Japanese instruction manuals into Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and English. The DTP designs for these three languages were different, furthermore, specific instructions were required for each language, increasing the difficulties and challenges of the project. – Integrated application of multiple tools This project involved the application of multiple tools including Photoshop, Illustrator, ABBYYFineReader, and SDL Trados Studio 2011. Moreover, the clients made several adjustments to the products’ appearance and accessories, so the DTP programmers needed to make constant revisions to meet the client’s requirements. – High standards for quality requirements Automatic bread maker instruction manuals involved a large number of culinary terms and names of ingredients. It required translators to have a good understanding of western culinary practices and high language proficiency. Added to that, high requirements were placed on the DTP layout as it was going to be published once completed.

Solutions

– Professional project team According to the client’s requirements, a team was formed from handpicked translators and DTP programmers. A business project manager was appointed as the key contact with the client to coordinate requests and feedback. A senior project manager was responsible for analyzing files and monitoring progress. – Document processing 1.Pre-translation: Since the client only provided PDF versions of documents instead of Indesign versions, the pre-translation department had to convert the PDF files and import them into Trados 2011. 2.Translation: The translators used Trados 2011 to ensure consistency of style and terms. 3.DTP: DTP specialists imported the translated materials into a PDF file. At the same time, depending on the products, modifications were made to the pictures and displayed texts. 4.Feedback revision: After sending out the finished files to the client, we made corrections according to the client’s feedback and suggestions until they were completely satisfied.

Conclusion

Thanks to the successful teamwork of the business development manager, the project manager, the translators and the DTP programmers, we completed the translation and DTP of the Panasonic SD-P104 and SD-BMS105 automatic bread maker instruction book. The client thought highly of our translation and the DTP quality and has established a long-term collaborative relationship with us.

Project Background

In mid 2012, Polygon Company had its official English website reconstructed and began the process of Chinese website localization. As one of its China branches, Polygon Xiamen was responsible for the localization work. Based on past cooperation with Polygon in technical translation, MTS, as a qualified supplier, went through a series of technical communication, sample translations and field consultations. Finally, in October 2012, MTS successfully took on the project. About Polygon Company Polygon Company was founded in 1949 by Sam Shobert, a chemist working on advanced composite materials during World War II at the U.S. Wright-Patterson Air Force base. Polygon Company has grown into an engineered materials company with multiple manufacturing facilities and sales offices around the world. Credited as being the first thermoset pultrusion company in North America, Polygon has recently formed a new product division based on an entirely new technology, commonly known as CFT (Continuous Fiber Thermoplastic) materials. Since then, Polygon’s ongoing research and development activities have resulted in multiple patents on innovative composite products as well as proprietary manufacturing capabilities that allow Polygon to project its superior value in the engineered materials marketplace.

Challenges

– Fresh CMS platform The CMS adopted by Polygon Company was the ExpressionEngine developed by EllisLab. The system has a certain market and was favored by designers due to its flexible customizability and superior template system, but it was not as widespread as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. It lacked detailed operating instructions except for a brief official user guide. Therefore, it took a certain amount of time to get familiar with its framework, modules and concrete operation. Furthermore, since the system did not have a practical program for localization, MTS’s technicians had to explore these issues themselves. – Diverse file types and procedure requirements Polygon Company is a large company. Its site would consist of more than ten file types, including lots of web pages (templates and body text), images (website titles, components and graphics), and documentations (product introductions, technical manuals, qualification certificates, quotation sheets and marketing information). These files would have to undergo such procedures as pre-translation, post-translation, DTP, design, engineering and testing. – High consistency in translation It had always been difficult but essential to keep precision and consistency in the terminology of voluminous technical documents. It was required that all units be converted from the imperial measurement system used in the U.S. into the metric system of measurement used in China. Moreover, to maintain brand consistency, the client specifically requested that some contents be left un-translated and some translated following fixed principles.

Solutions

– Specialized project group A specialized project group was selected with members suitably qualified for the client’s translation requirements and familiar with the process. Every member of the group committed himself to this two-month project: an account manager was assigned to contact the client, confirm project requirements and respond to any feedback; an experienced project manager was responsible for analyzing the process, allocating specific tasks and keep an eye on the project’s progress; a professional translation team, who had passed the client’s test carried out the translation; an engineer experienced in website construction took charge of construction, management and maintenance of the web server. He also localized and tested web pages. DTP technicians skilled in design and using layout tools reformatted the translation. Key issues and milestones on this project were negotiated by senior managers on both sides to work out win-win solutions. – Reliable technology Following an in-depth study, MTS technicians were able to fully comprehend the ExpressionEngine framework. They were then familiar with the functions and operation of the system’s modules. Localization of all web pages, including the background system then proceeded well. Some bugs in the system could also be detected and were reported to the client in time so that codes could be modified. Apart from this, technicians also offered guidance to the client on matters such as renting a web server, DNS and route optimization. – Rigorous project procedure It was of great importance to plan a rigorous procedure for the project as it involved diverse types of documents, multiple processes and different departments. Once the website source material had been received from Polygon Company, the project manager first sorted out the files and requested the client resubmit problematic ones. Next, the project manager offered an analysis report, including processes, workload and estimated lead time, after which technicians settled some necessary pre-translation. The project was not launched until the client had confirmed. Finally, each member of the project group carried out individual duties based on the project procedure as follows: Pre-translation, Translation, Edting, Proofreading, Quality control, Localization test, Localization, DTP, Graphic design, Client’s modification, Client’s amendment; – Strict Quality Control MTS created a Translation Memory to keep the terminology consistent, thus meeting the client’s quality requirements. Once translation was completed, ApSIC Xbench was applied to control the quality by amending obvious errors. A thorough check was executed by translators following localization and testing of the website translation. Particular attention was paid to ensuring the implementation of all translation notes, including fixed expressions and unit conversions. – Thoughtful Follow-up After completing the localization of the website, the group members sat together with the client’s representatives, sharing experiences and discussing the construction of Chinese website. Since ExpressionEngine was not widely used and lacked detailed operation instructions, MTS technicians also provided website maintenance personnel with training in the areas of web configuration, setting instructions and content maintenance.

Conclusion

The website localization for Polygon Company was completed in December 2012 and delivered to Polygon Xiamen without any problems. This project not only assisted the client to build an outstanding image and develop its China’s market, but also helped MTS win the recognition and trust of the client. MTS sincerely hopes to create professional value for the client that results in long-term cooperation and mutual benefit. Website references EN：http://polygoncomposites.com CN：http://www.polygoncompany.com.cn

About the client

Located in Australia, Development Finance Partners (DFP) are the leading industry experts in combining property development advisory with funding to offer a complete end-to-end solution for developers and stakeholders. They have a unique combination of specialist knowledge and practical experience with the directors collectively having facilitated over $1 billion in funding packages for their clients. In August 2015, MTS undertook its website translation project.

About the project

The website is composed of seven sections, with a total word count of about 100,000 and contains a vast number of financial terms. As it was the first time that DFP had cooperated with MTS and there was also no reference TM provided, so completion of this website translation was kind of a complex task. According to the content of the website, the account manager assigned the project to the PM of our social sciences translation team. Two experienced linguists were picked according to their expertise. The PM and linguists worked out a specific style guide for this particular project. After translation and editing by linguists, the QA management did the final reviews before delivering the translation to the client in batches. The whole project was completed on time and to a high quality, and we continue to translate monthly updates of the website for the client. Website: http://www.dfpartners.com.au/