Huge reduction in delivery time, difficult to achieve with human translation, but made possible through combination of machine translation and Trados

Yokogawa Electric Corporation Overview

・Established: December 1, 1920

・Capital: 43,410,500,000 yen (as of the end of March 2020)

Number of Employees: 18,107 (consolidated)

・Business Activities: Control Business, Measurement Business, Aerospace and Other Businesses

 Services Utilized

Trados and Google Translate Integration Solution MTrans for Trados

Background

We want to reduce the workload of in-house translators and improve operational efficiency.

Yokogawa Electric Corporation is the largest domestic manufacturer of measurement and control equipment.

The IA-SS SDC Development Innovation Promotion Department Document Development Section creates and translates manuals related to control systems, including the following products.

・Integrated Production Control System (DCS) "CENTUM VP"

・Safety Instrumented System "ProSafe-RS"

Integrated Production Control System CENTUM VP

In translation, it is necessary to translate a large volume of documents, mainly from Japanese to English, amounting to several million characters annually.

Several in-house translators carry out translations using the translation software Trados.

In considering the introduction of machine translation to reduce the workload of in-house translators, we contacted Human Science in February 2020.

Reasons for Choosing Human Science

Smooth operation as a Trados plugin

Integration of Trados and machine translation was essential in the translation work.

We conducted information gathering over several years and trialed machine translation services from more than five companies to evaluate them. However, the results showed that they were insufficient for use in our operations due to issues such as "unstable performance" and "errors or no translation output."

Among them, we conducted a two-week trial of Human Science's "MTrans for Trados" from the end of February 2020.

・As a plugin for Trados, it operates smoothly. It has received good evaluations from those engaged in translation work.

・The response to questions that arose during the trial was quick, and the support was courteous. The support was good, and we felt confident entrusting it.

We received such evaluations and decided to proceed with the implementation.

Implementation Effects

Achieving deadlines that were difficult with the conventional translation process has become possible

"Among the translation tasks I am responsible for, there are requests with very tight deadlines, and I felt that meeting those deadlines would have been impossible without using MTrans for Trados.

When handling urgent translations, the presence of MTrans for Trados' translated text provides a sense of reassurance, significantly reducing the pressure related to deadlines.

Even in technically challenging descriptions where translators struggle to understand the content, MTrans for Trados sticks fairly straightforwardly to literal translation, allowing users to grasp the content from there and refine it.

MTrans for Trados does not generate free or liberal translations, so there is no need to "interpret" the translated text, making it easier to identify parts that require editing even when the translation is not as intended.

(IA-SS SDC Development Innovation Promotion Department, Document Development Section, Translator)

Evaluation of Human Science Co., Ltd.

They concretely shaped what I had vaguely wanted to do.

"I would like to express my heartfelt praise and gratitude to everyone who developed MTrans for Trados as a translator. Since this was the first time we seriously introduced machine translation into our translation work, its contribution to improving work efficiency has also attracted attention within the company.

The future challenge is to reduce the burden of post-editing. Although the quality of the translation is not an issue, it is necessary to manually correct the application of styles. Human Science Co., Ltd. proposed a "custom engine" that customizes terminology and expressions, as well as quality improvements by changing the translation process. We would like to consider what we can do based on the feedback we received.
We look forward to continued support for efficiency improvements."

(IA-SS SDC Development Innovation Promotion Department, Document Development Section, Translator)

 Related Services

・Trados and Google Translate Integration Solution MTrans for Trados