Want the best translation services for manufacturing? Language service providers (LSPs) – oftentimes referred to as “translation agencies” – are not your only option for top-notch manufacturing translation services and localization projects. In fact, if you want to translate manufacturing documents into different languages in a faster, smarter and more secure way, you should use translation software for manufacturers. 

Translation software can be used internally at your organization to produce high-quality, accurate technical translations. It can drastically reduce hours worked, as well as translation-related costs in comparison to hiring a translation agency. What’s more, it will give you the fastest translation turnaround. 

However, if you want the best translation service for manufacturing, you need translation software made for enterprise use. 

What You’ll Learn in this Article

In this article, you’ll learn how to internally leverage enterprise translation tools and technologies that are actually the ones used by translation service providers. You’ll learn what they are, how they benefit your company and why using these internally is better than hiring any translation service out there.

At the end of this article, we’ll recommend the best translation management system for enterprises that encompasses all of these technologies in one easy-to-use enterprise platform. It will even help your company get on the AI bandwagon. 

This way, you can get manufacturing translations that will continue to provide high-quality technical translations for your company at increasingly less cost for years to come.

Become Your Own “Best-in-Class” Manufacturing Translation Service Provider with these Technologies

Here are the technologies and capabilities that the best translation service providers use, that you can find in one software solution made just for companies like yours.

1. AI-Powered File Translator (Top Tool Used in Translation Services for Manufacturing)

All the best translation services use a robust AI-powered file translator that supports various file formats – not just a digital PDF or Word document. 

They know to use AI tools like this that are optimized for all the different file types your manufacturing company works with. Why? Because it saves them time while producing your translations, which means they produce translations for you at a lower cost to themselves. 

These tools use machine translation to provide an initial first draft of your file. Then, these translation service providers post-edit it to improve translation quality (since AI translation isn’t perfect). Essentially, you could use this same technology internally and have a bilingual employee do the post-editing. Most manufacturing companies send their translations for review to bilingual employees usually found in the target language country

2. Technical Translation Editor

Speaking of post-editing, your company can use a translation editing tool to increase its productivity when editing and reviewing technical manufacturing translations. A robust translation editor is better than editing in MSWord or marking up a PDF. Most professional manufacturing translation services use a translation editor when translating technical documents for clients.

The big manufacturing translation services most often use these translation editors with translation memory and terminology management (see #5 and #6 for more information). And you can, too.

3. Text Gisting 

Since manufacturing translations don’t always require translating an entire file, you might need to translate a small chunk of text on occasion. For example, an email communication from a foreign colleague. 

“Gisting” typically involves providing a rough or fundamental translation of text. And translation providers often use a gisting tool to help their clients gain a rapid understanding of text that doesn’t require publishable quality. 

4. Batch Translation

All the big language service providers use batch file translation for manufacturers. This technology allows them to translate multiple files simultaneously for a single manufacturer. This way, they can perform quick AI-assisted language translations for groups of related documents.

One example of a combination of manufacturing documents that might be translated together are material safety data sheets, training materials and worker safety instructions.

5. Translation Memory

Manufacturing translation services most often utilize what is called a “translation memory” to save and store the high-quality translations you pay for. They automatically reuse these previous translations over and over again for your projects. It’s great for things like owner’s manuals and service information where only a small amount of text changes every year.

Translation memory works in tandem with machine translation and dynamic machine learning to deliver continuous quality improvements. If you want to internally store and reuse previous translations just like the large translation companies do, you can. Translate once and reuse often.

Learn more in the 2-minute video below.

6. Terminology Management

Manufacturing translation providers use robust terminology management tools to minimize the need for post-editing. All while enhancing the quality and consistency of your technical translations. 

Terminology management helps them produce custom translations with the use of a term base. In simple language, a term base is a list of your company’s approved terms. Look for translation software with easy-to-use terminology management features that allow you to produce translations with your company’s terms. 

This technology is available not only to these LSP’s, but also to companies like yours – at a lower cost.

7. Automatic File Formatting

When it comes to a manufacturer’s documents that need to retain publishable quality, language service providers will utilize automatic formatting technology. However, sometimes, the computer-assisted translation tools they use will displace text and images in the translated file.

This technology retains most of your file’s layout and formatting when parsing your original file. It will reduce the amount of time spent formatting your translations and while it’s not without its flaws, it will save you a lot of time spent on reformatting files. 

This technology is not only available to the big manufacturing translation service providers – your company can use it, too.

8. Collaborative Translation

Manufacturing translators use collaborative translation technologies to effectively work with team members in the cloud. 

For example, someone will upload the documents sent by the client for machine translation, and then subject matter experts will weigh in to edit translations once a first draft is ready. Then the client approves it. Collaborative tools help to streamline this process for them. 

Some collaborative technologies used by the smartest manufacturing translation service providers include:

• File sharing
• Instant messaging
• Translation history
• Segment bookmarking
• User permission controls

You can take advantage of these same capabilities in your internal translation process.

9. Scanned PDF Support

Need to translate scanned PDF documents? Any good translation service for manufacturers will use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) when translating your scanned PDFs. Translating scanned PDF documents often poses considerable challenges. This is because it needs to be readable by OCR. 

So if you take translation services in-house, you’ll want high-quality OCR to avoid a poor translation. Otherwise, your translated scanned document might contain text that looks like gibberish. But don’t worry, we’ll recommend a translation tool that has robust OCR capabilities.

Read more about using OCR for translation to get the best results. 

10. Enterprise Security (Not Often Used by Many Manufacturing Translation Services)

Lastly, enterprise security is a must in this day and age. However, not many manufacturing translation agencies use translation software that has enterprise-level security. That being said, adopting your own translation management system with all the technologies listed above plus enterprise security, will enable you to translate while safeguarding your company’s data.

Best Alternative to Translation Services for Manufacturing

Wondering how to find the best translation software that includes all the above technologies and capabilities? 

Explore Pairaphrase. It’s the AI-powered translation management system for global teams who value safer, smarter and faster translation.  Best of all, there’s almost zero learning curve and it’s very easy to implement and use.

Many companies like yours use Pairaphrase as an alternative to costly manufacturing translation services. And you can, too!

Schedule a Demo or share this article with a colleague.

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Related:

How to Translate AutoCAD Files into Different Languages

Translation Services 101: Your Guide to the Basics

Best Translation Software for User Manuals