CASE STUDY:
Learn the answer to the following questions:
- Why optimising the process for technical documentation and translation is the smart choice when you have a lot of manuals that are similar?
- How FSI achieved major savings with translations?
- How single sourcing can support the technical documentation and translation process?
WHAT IS SINGLE SOURCING?
Single sourcing specifically means that you only have to write a text once, and afterwards, the entire text or parts of the text can be re-used in other contexts. In addition, the content can
easily be published in different formats, such as PDF or HTML format.
WHEN OPTIMISING YOUR MANUALS RESULTS IN MAJOR SAVINGS
FSI power-tech ApS has 25 different product manuals, which are translated into more than 20 languages. One of the major challenges the company faced, was ongoing updates due to small changes to content. This involved a lot of manual work in adapting the manuals and then
having them translated as new. In other words, FSI needed to optimise the preparation of
manuals and translation process.
COLLABORATION AND SINGLE SOURCING
A close collaboration between FSI, World Translation and a specialist in single sourcing meant that we could devise an efficient process for FSI’s manuals and their subsequent
translation. We thereby ensured that not only were FSI’s manuals adapted in accordance with the correct structure, but that the content was also optimised and ready for
translation. Normally, this process happens after the technical documentation has been
prepared and sent for translation. The excellent preparatory work meant that FSI obtained
absolutely the best end product and a process that was much more efficient going forward, since the manuals quickly could be sent for translation. At the same time, we came to the
conclusion that single sourcing was the best solution for FSI. Single sourcing makes it simple to change many manuals in one go, since there is only one version of the source text. With an
update, you only need to write the new text once, and all of the other 25 manuals will be adapted automatically. This structured way of working increases the quality of the text in the manuals, since terminology, use of language and content are uniform across the manuals,
regardless of which language the manuals are translated into.
MAJOR SAVINGS TO BE MADE
The solution meant that FSI’s manuals only needed to be translated once for each target
language, and the text was then re-used in future translations. This is possible because we build up a translation memory, where we save FSI’s previous translations. This means that we can then re-use them, again and again, so that FSI’s future translation costs become significantly less. At the same time, the time spent on translation becomes much less, since you no longer have to translate the entire manual from scratch.
”Good and efficient collaboration with a competent team at World Translation and with our
single sourcing partner, ensures that we can order and deliver user manuals in new language variations in line with needs, and all of it done quickly and at a fair price. The collaboration’s
effectiveness has already resulted in very noticeable savings in costs for development, and in particular with the updating of technical material.”
- Klaus Holgersen, FSI power-tech