Translation Quality Measurement Approaches

Six approaches to measuring translation quality is a short article published several years ago on the Medical Design Online web site (the article is still available).

The six approaches mentioned are:

1. Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) J2450
2. Localisation Industry Standard Association (LISA) QA Model
3. ForeignExchange Translations' Multilingual Compliance Process
4. American Translators Association accreditation program
5. Deutsches Institut für Normung DIN 2345
6. Six sigma quality initiative

The article contains some further details about these differing approaches to quality.

Standards and Models

Better Localization has an interesting article (Standards and models, why should we care?) about how the application of various standards and models would be beneficial in the localization industry.

They are not goals, but tools to achieve goals

The standards described briefly in teh article are ISO 9001:2000, CMMI, BSC, PCMM, and their integration.

ISO 9000 Certification, and Other Methods of Certifying the Quality of LSPs

A few days ago Common Sense Advisory published an article (Looking for Language Service Providers in All the Right Places) on how customers may make sure that LSPs (Language Service Providers) meet their business needs.

...training and certification are good ideas that we believe every buyer ultimately will demand of their suppliers.

Among the interesting things mentioned in the article there is the fact that only 10% of LSPs have ISO 9000 certification.

The article ends up promoting Common Sense Advisory's own certification service for LSPs, which itself looks interesting:

We take a financial auditor's approach to the question of certification -- such firms check a company's compliance to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Similarly, our 24x7 program looks for "a" process that is used consistently and constantly throughout an LSP's organization. That process can be ISO, defined by a client, internally developed, or any combination of these.