Quality? Checked.

The choice of a trusted partner is a complex and delicate action. When selecting a supplier, it is essential considering aspects like competence, quality, professionalism, seriousness, and reliability. But how can these elements be recognized beyond reputational information, which is often difficult to verify in advance?

4 minutes – read

One of the tangible proofs are undoubtedly system certifications, issued by independent bodies when achieving certain standards in a specific field of activity and followed by periodic audits and renewals to ensure that the certified levels are maintained over time.

The most important global organization that deals with the definition of technical standards and the requirements to be met for issuing certifications is the ISO (International Organization for Standardisation). Possessing an ISO certificate guarantees and demonstrates a company’s commitment and responsibility to continue to improve its processes and comply with regulations; it also provides a transparent, objective, standardized, and international technical reference framework.

But let’s see in detail which certifications are of interest in the translation field.

ISO 9001:2015 – Quality management systems

ISO 9001:2015 is the international standard for Quality Management Systems (QMS), published by the ISO, that determines the standards for the creation, implementation, and management of a QMS for any company, regardless of its size or sector of expertise. As an international standard, the certification is recognized as the basis for creating a system that ensures customer satisfaction and improvement in any company and, therefore, many companies consider it as a minimum requirement when choosing their suppliers. 

The ISO 9001 consists of ten sections; the first three are introductory, while the last seven contain the Quality Management System requirements. Its main benefits are:

• improving a company’s image and credibility
• improving client satisfaction
• completing process integration
• basing decisions on facts
• creating a culture of continuous improvement
• involving people

ISO 17100:2015 – Conformity for the quality of language services

ISO 17100:2015 is an international standard which replaces the previous standard EN 15038:2006 focused specifically on the translation services sector and directed at translation agencies as well as translation offices within companies.

The certification identifies the requirements for the main processes, resources and other aspects needed to perform a quality translation service that meets all the applicable specifications. Moreover, its application allows Language Service Providers to demonstrate the conformity of specific translation services to the Standard and the ability of its processes and resources to perform a service that meets the client’s specifications and other applicable requirements, that can be company-specific or related to the adoption of good practices or codes of conduct and relevant legislation. 

The most important feature of the certification is the definition of the translation process, in which translation in the strict sense is only one of the steps and does not guarantee quality unless a revision is carried out by a second translator, as well as the precise definition of the professional skills of each of the participants in the translation process, mainly the translators, revisers and project managers.

The aforementioned skills defined in the ISO 17100 standard include:

• translation competence
• textual and linguistic competence in the source and target language
• research competence
• information acquisition and processing competence
• cultural competence
• technical competence
• sectoral competence

Furthermore, the translator is required to have at least five years of experience in the field in which they translate/review.

1Stop Translations is ISO 9001, ISO 17100, and ISO 18587 certified for the quality of language services.

Our translations meet the highest quality requirements set by international standards, which impose not only perfect comprehensibility of the text, but also consistency of terminology, lexical and stylistic consistency, making us your ideal partner when multilingual content management services are concerned.

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