Are we making ourselves clear? Terminology management and machine translation at Volkswagen

EAMT 2005 Conference Proceedings 41 Are We Making Ourselves Clear? Terminology Management and Machine Translation at Volkswagen Ulrike Bernardi, Andras Bocsak and Jörg Porsiel FS-ZM on the behalf of Volkswagen Service Division VK-3/1 Language Services P.O. box 1997 D-38436 Wolfsburg extern.joerg.porsiel@volkswagen.de Comprendium Lingua GmbH Munich Neumarkter Str. 81 D-81541 Munich ulrike.bernardi@comprendium.de andras.bocsak@comprendium.de Abstract. User acceptance and system integration in existing IT environments are the key factors in machine translation (MT) becoming a universally implemented tool. Although output quality obviously plays a major role, it is not the sole decisive factor. User percep- tion of MT, however, is an important issue, and MT needs to be seen as one of several tools in the user’s work environment. Trends, such as globalisation and the high volume of multi- lingual information available on the internet and within large companies, have made fast and consistent translation, and thus machine translation, indispensable in accelerating deci- sion making. However, the logistics and workflows necessary for the successful integration of MT are complex and varied. Comprendium employs a highly flexible architecture to deal with these complex customer-specific demands. It thus advances the practical use of MT by allowing a wide range of MT workflow solutions to be implemented both in the translation "cottage industry" and in large corporate translation portals and professional translation en- vironments. This paper gives an overview of two applications at Volkswagen in which the machine translation system has been integrated successfully with very good user accep- tance. The applications are the “Volkswagen Language Portal” and the “Process Sched- ule” (Arbeitsplan). 1. Introduction As is the case with other large international companies, Volkswagen needs to manage a range of issues arising from an increasing vol- ume of information. The sheer volume of dif- ferent types of information at Volkswagen Cus- tomer Service® clearly underlines the urgent need for a concerted and uniform approach. In addition to owner's manuals, approx. 40,000 pages of highly diverse publications are pro- duced annually in the Workshop Information Department of Volkswagen’s Headquarters in Wolfsburg. Workshop manuals, current flow diagrams, maintenance tables, data sheets and software for diagnostic systems also contribute to this total. As a global player, Volkswagen sells its vehi- cles in more than 150 countries, which means that information management tasks and associ- ated potential problems can become very large. Owner’s manuals, for example, are translated into twenty-seven languages, including English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Hebrew and Esto- nian. German is the source language of ap- proximately 95% of all texts of this type. Just one small mistake in terminology or linguistic ambiguity in the German text can have reper- cussions in all the languages the text is trans- lated into. A sound and unified approach is needed to master challenges such as Bernardi et al. 42 EAMT 2005 Conference Proceedings • significant increase in technical documenta- tion, • greater vehicle complexity and associated technologies (e.g. electronics), • drastically reduced innovation cycles, • stricter EU legislation and other legal re- quirements, • shorter time-to-market and, • growing translation …

Content truncated to 500 words