Case Study Schmieder

Schmieder integrated the Across Language Server in order to optimize the entire translation process.

Under the motto "The art of making complexity and language work", Schmieder Übersetzung GmbH localizes about two million words a year in more than 30 languages with the help of 15 internal project managers and 250 external translators. Most texts consist of technical documentation, catalogs, brochures, flyers, and contracts. For this purpose, the company has organized its project management in four teams that bundle different competencies. On the one hand, the teams are specialized in sectors such as the automotive industry and mechanical engineering, fashion and games, garden tools and railway technology, and camper vans and mail order selling. On the other hand, distinction is made by processes: The collaboration with Across customers is different from the catalog production together with advertising agencies, the process management for corporate customers, or the language services for small and mediumsized businesses.

Starting Point

The customer can choose one of two quality assurance options: Either with internal review according to the doublechecking principle or with proofreading according to DIN EN 15038, for which a second translator with the same level of qualification checks the entire translation. International subsidiaries or employees of the customer who are native speakers can also be seamlessly integrated in the correction process via crossWeb access. Every customer is offered a customtailored translation solution that can be adapted to changed requirements at any time. For customers that have internal language departments, Schmieder serves as a project management and translation service provider. Corporations that do not have any centralized language departments can outsource the entire language management to Schmieder GmbH, which then operates as a central contact for all departments. Initially, the decision to introduce the Across Language Server was based on the requirement of one key account. "By successively transferring the handling of other customer projects to the Across Language Server, we have made this investment even more profitable. This also helps us to expand our base of external experts, who can process most of our projects with a single software – the Across Personal Edition that is free of charge for them", explains Florian Schmieder. To ensure comprehensive expertise in the use of the translation management system, the Schmieder team has participated in all training sessions for the Across certification.

Project Handling with Across

The customer can choose one of two quality assurance options: Either with internal review according to the doublechecking principle or with proofreading according to DIN EN 15038, for which a second translator with the same level of qualification checks the entire translation. International subsidiaries or employees of the customer who are native speakers can also be seamlessly integrated in the correction process via crossWeb access. Every customer is offered a customtailored translation solution that can be adapted to changed requirements at any time. For customers that have internal language departments,  Schmieder serves as a project management and translation service provider. Corporations that do not have any centralized language departments can outsource the entire language management to  Schmieder GmbH, which then operates as a central contact for all departments. Initially, the decision to introduce the Across Language Server was based on the requirement of one key account. "By successively transferring the handling of other customer projects to the Across Language Server, we have made this investment even more profitable. This also helps us to expand our base of external experts, who can process most of our projects with a single software – the Across Personal Edition that is free of charge for them", explains Florian Schmieder. To ensure comprehensive expertise in the use of the translation management system, the Schmieder team has participated in all training sessions for the Across certification.

Result

For Schmieder Übersetzungen GmbH and its customers, the introduction of the Across  Language Server has paid. "Especially small and mediumsized businesses benefit provably from Across. We can show you the actual savings over a particular time period." Schmieder also saves costs because translations that already exist in the translation memory can be reused and because the standardization of the internal software landscape increases the efficiency of the project handling. In this regard, the direct connection of the translators via crossWAN also represents a positive contribution.

The enterprise passes on these savings to its customers and is thus able to bundle competitive, sustainable offers especially in the technical field. A concrete example: A medium-sized mechanical engineering company that sells laser systems worldwide. In this company, communication in various languages is part of the daily work. However, the costs of ongoing translations were clearly too high.

Even minor text changes resulted in the need for translating large portions of the documents anew, which was both time-consuming and expensive. Therefore, Schmieder integrated the Across Language Server in order to optimize the entire translation process. Existing translations were aligned. With the help of the Across translation memory, all source texts were subsequently checked for repetitions, missing passages were translated, and redundancies were removed. In this way, the translation memory was harmonized and stored as an authoritative data source. Thus, only passages that have actually been changed or added need to be translated for the mechanical engineering company. In as little as three months, the company was able to cut translation costs by one third or as much as 40 percent in individual projects.