Managing translation and localisation projects with LTC Organiser

MANAGING TRANSLATION AND LOCALISATION PROJECTS WITH LTC ORGANISER Dr Adriane Rinsche, Language Technology Centre Ltd., 5-7 Kingston Hill, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, KT2 7PW, UK – Email: rinsche@langtech.co.uk Abstract Using an invented case study, the paper describes how multilingual translation projects can be managed efficiently with an enterprise resource management tool called “LTC Organiser”, which was developed specifically for the particular requirements of the language industry. The talk will describe the most important aspects of the integrated solution, such as client and supplier management, project and finance management, managing tools used in the translation process, reporting facilities, security and user management, directory management, sort and search facilities as well as web functionality available at several levels. Keywords language industry, translation process, enterprise resource management Organising multilingual work is time consuming and expensive. Errors can occur at many levels, and the human memory is limited. A typical localisation, translation (or interpreting) manager is responsible for a broad range of very time consuming tasks. Tasks like budgeting, project co-ordination, client contact, resource management, establishing deadlines and generating quotes are integral parts of project management. Therefore, the language industry is in need of automating the relevant business processes as far as possible, making them transparent within the organisation, and providing as much information as viable and sensible to the customers and suppliers in the outside world. Let us assume a new potential customer called COM.com registers with translation company ACME on their website, asking for a quote (figure1). COM.com want their website translated from English into French, German and Spanish, therefore COM.com’s marketing manager Bobby Busy enters the company details and URL of COM.com’s website, the language combination (s) required and the preferred start date and a deadline on the client web form in ACME’s website. This information is automatically transferred from the web form to the Quotation module of LTC Organiser (figure2). ACME’s project manager Freeda Friendly is notified, analyses the website, determines a price for each language and returns the quote to Bobby Busy by email (figure3). Bobby Busy accepts the quote. Now Freeda Friendly simply presses the Create Project button in the Quotation module: the system automatically generates the project structure in the Project management module (figure 4). Freeda Friendly needs to put together an appropriate team. First she needs a technical expert preparing the HTML files for translation. She also needs a team of French, German and Spanish translators, three for each language, etc., and she checks availability of appropriate resources in the supplier database (figure 5). Freeda Friendly realises that the in-house translators are quite busy, and only one employed translator can be allocated to the German project, she therefore sends an email to all other possible freelance candidates. Meanwhile the in-house technical expert prepares the files and copies them to the appropriate directories (figure 6). Freeda Friendly has allocated all her resources (technical experts, translators, revisers, etc), including delivery dates for each individual involved in the project (figure 7). In addition, one of the external translators does …

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