Quality assurance (QA) is a way of preventing mistakes, defects, and avoiding problems when delivering services to customers. It is the systematic measurement, comparison with a standard, monitoring of processes and an associated feedback loop that confers error prevention. ISO 9000 defines QA as "part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled".

Translation without QA is risky

Quality assurance for translation comprises administrative and procedural activities implemented in a quality system so that requirements and goals for the service will be fulfilled. If QA is not implemented properly mistakes made in the process are left in your translation. It is like having your final product with defects.

These defects are published and shared to your audience such as existing and potential customers. A poor translation can have a negative impact on your product, become an embarrassment to your brand, and decrease your sales. Misuse with a poor translation could lead to an accident becoming a product liability lawsuit.

QA in your translation process

As a given, to be ISO 9001:2016 and ISO 17100:2015 certified are critically important for QA. We at idioma® are certified with both and adhere to its practices and procedures.

To further the QA process, we have developed CrossCheck® a comprehensive QA software that checks for errors while our translator’s work. CrossCheck® functions from beginning to end of the translation process to check for potential errors and fix actual mistakes. CrossCheck® is integrated to our CAT tool iQube to systematically manage the QA process.

What is CrossCheck®

CrossCheck® is our QA software which detects any text with possible mistakes during the translation, verification, and our custom in-house checking process.

If actual mistakes are found, we categorize them and create error statistics to provide structured feedback to everyone. This maintains our high level of competence and encourages translators to learn and improve from their work. Translators can improve the accuracy, terminology, language use, and consistency in their translations.

We believe QA is a key component for every translation project to deliver the best translations.

Need to improve your QA process? You can access CrossCheck® or download the Trados Studio plug-in. If you have any questions, please leave us a message or contact us at info@idioma.com.