Case Study
Confidential · European Industrial Client
Over a decade of uninterrupted translation and typesetting — because consistency compounds.
Challenge
The Problem
Due to a non-disclosure agreement, we are unable to identify this client by name. What we can share is the nature of the work and its scale. The client — a European manufacturer and distributor of industrial automation and measurement equipment — began working with MediaLocalize over ten years ago. Their core challenge was consistency: product documentation, technical manuals, and trade show materials needed to be translated between English and Simplified Chinese with exact terminology alignment across years and across document types. Previous translation vendors had produced inconsistent terminology across versions, creating downstream problems for their China-market support teams and generating complaints from technical users who encountered conflicting terminology between the manual and the on-screen interface.
Solution
What We Did
MediaLocalize built and maintains a dedicated termbase and translation memory for this client, covering over 4,000 product-specific and technical terms in both English and Simplified Chinese. All translation work is performed by a consistent team of subject-matter-specialist translators with backgrounds in industrial automation, coordinated by a dedicated project manager who has been with this account since its inception. InDesign typesetting is handled in-house, with Chinese layout adapted for correct line-breaking rules, font rendering, and column width adjustments specific to CJK character sets. A standing SLA guarantees turnaround within 5 business days for standard document volumes.
Results
The Outcome
The partnership has now exceeded ten years of continuous engagement. Cumulative translation volume has surpassed 250,000 words across hundreds of documents. The client's China-market support escalations related to documentation errors dropped to near zero within the first year of the new terminology framework. The relationship has expanded from initial catalog translation to cover the full content lifecycle: new product launches, annual catalog updates, trade show materials, training guides, and regulatory submissions.
Long-term translation partnerships work differently from transactional projects. The compounding value is in the institutional knowledge — a termbase that grows richer with every document, a project manager who already knows the product line, and a workflow calibrated to the client’s production schedule. After ten years, we don’t just translate for this client; we function as their extended Chinese language team.