Translation Quality

Expert Professional Translators

SimulTrans employs some of the best professional translators in the world, having proven their capabilities through professional training, years of hard work, and a rigorous qualification process.

SimulTrans strongly prefers translators who reside in the appropriate target country, since these linguists have better access to resource materials and can more naturally maintain absolute fluency in their native languages, minimizing the scourge of linguistic contamination that eventually inflicts itself upon translators who speak, hear, and write their non-native language each day.

Each SimulTrans translator typically has the following strong qualifications:

• Native speaker of the target language who lives in the target country
• Full-time focus on professional translation
• Minimum of five years of professional translation experience
• Higher-education degree in translation or a related field
• Industry-specific knowledge and experience
• Relevant hardware and software expertise, including familiarity with translation memory tools
• Commitment to confidentiality requirements
• Passion for excellence in translation and its impact on end-users in target markets

Quality-Oriented Process

SimulTrans has developed an extensive quality-oriented process. This system has many attributes:

Identification of potential problems up-front. Rather than stumble on difficulties throughout the project, SimulTrans undertakes an extensive front-end analysis study of each project. These preliminary process steps of project set-up, materials testing, and localization analysis provide intelligent information to avoid pitfalls.

Flexibility to meet customer requirements. While we are very committed to our strong process, we understand occasional modifications are necessary to meet the needs of our customers. SimulTrans makes a strong effort to analyze each project at the beginning, meet with our customers, and design the most appropriate project plan.

Strong and early communication. We have built many steps into the process to ensure we are avoiding errors rather than correcting them. By communicating with customer reviewers early in the project, providing extensive training for both our teams, and identifying internationalization errors in the beginning, SimulTrans provides excellent quality.

Thorough translation reviews. After the translation of each component, a subject-matter expert technically reviews the translations to ensure the terminology accurately reflects the contents of the glossary, the industry customs, and the expectations of the target customers.  Finally, we proofread all materials to ensure complete, correct, natural, and consistent translations.

Back translations. To meet some medical certification requirements, SimulTrans is able to provide a separate "back translation" of the translated content back into the source language.  Back translations are completed independently by linguists who were not involved in the initial translation and who do not have access to the original source material.  The back translation is then compared to the initial source to ensure consistency of core meaning.

Emphasis on the role of the project manager. SimulTrans’ project managers are among the best in the industry, averaging over seven years of localization management experience. They are trained to create detailed project plans, communicate proactively with our customers, and maintain contingency options to overcome delay.

ISO 9001 Certification

According to BSI, the registrar that annually audits SimulTrans for compliance, ISO 9001 is "The world's most recognized quality management standard."  This standard ensures we have a well-documented process, follow it consistently, and strive to continuously improve.

Perhaps most notable among SimulTrans' ISO certification elements is the SimulTrans Quality database. This database is a fully automated system that is email-enabled, spans all of SimulTrans' offices and departments, and is easy to use. All SimulTrans' staff members were trained on and use this system actively. SimulTrans is able to monitor, index, and respond to quality issues in an effective and timely manner, while seeking opportunities for process improvement.

ISO 17100 Certification

In many ways, ISO 17100 is even more relevant than ISO 9001 for the localization industry. While ISO 9001 provides a set of quality standards that can be applied to many industries, ISO 17100 is based on the EN 15038 standard that was exclusively designed for the translation industry by the European Committee for Standardization in 2006.  SimulTrans has certified under EN 15038 soon after the publication of that standard and upgraded to the ISO 17100 certification in 2016.

ISO 17100 aims to standardize terminology, define basic requirements for services, and create a framework for interaction between customers and services providers. Some of the standards that SimulTrans uses to evaluate translators' performance are dictated by the rigorous ISO 17100 requirements.

Excellent Quality → High Customer Satisfaction

SimulTrans is lucky to have many loyal customers who have been working with us many years. Per our Quality Policy, SimulTrans strives to exceed customer expectations with each project.

Based on our customer surveys issued upon the conclusion of each project, SimulTrans’ customer satisfaction rate has increased over the five years these metrics have been tracked, to 95.9% for the 2014 calendar year.