Is it advisable to make a quality control

As mentioned in a previous publication, a step of QA (Quality Control) can be vital when we try to satisfy the high demands of our customers. We always do our best to deliver high quality work. But sometimes, some details are passed long. Sometimes, our customers will require a work of one step (either only the translation of a document, or just the step of editing), or a regular workflow in two or three steps. But no matter how many steps are involved in work in particular, always is a good idea to perform a final quality control . This step will help us find problems that can be neglected at a glance. Whether it's the use of labels, punctuation, inconsistencies in the source or target text, numerical inconsistencies, etc., or any custom control that you want to perform.

We can rely on specific software for this task. I'd like to mention one in particular that has proven to be very useful to perform these tasks. I'm talking about Bench. This program recognizes different types of file formats. Bilingual files related to the translation format XLIFF (as Me source or SDL Studio work files), including former Trados Tag Editor, files of Word files, as well as translation memories and glossaries from different sources of programs. This program comes with preset generic checklist, which includes, among other features, inconsistencies in the source and target text, tags, numerical, alphanumeric mismatches, symbols and non-equivalent quotes, only by name a few. There is also an option to create personalized checklists, which can be useful when dealing with customers or different linguists and requests for specific formats. Within this framework of controls, our work becomes easier.

Though a QA step may be done at any time during our workflow, it is recommended to perform it as the last or penultimate step. Normally, a final quality control step should not give rise to significant changes in the content of our project, unless we have to modify a segment due to an inconsistency in our language of destination. Work with the content itself is the task of the translator, editor or proofreader. Who perform QA take more shape in that the final work will be presented, taking into account the preferences of our customer (i.e. Verify that all instructions have been followed) and the overall consistency of our project.

Another advantage is that this step can be performed by the same linguist who has done editing or correction of the document. As it will not be a biased task (because again, the content is not modified unless strictly required by an existing inconsistency), the task can be performed by the same resource that has done the previous step, or by who will carry out the following, and in this way, you can save time finding another linguist of our database (nothing, Project Managers!). When we talk about saving resources, we could be indoctrinating the misconception in our customers that our final product will not be satisfactory, but believe me, this will not be the case.

Performing a quality control demonstrates to our customers that we are committed to delivering a product of the highest quality. Some agencies choose to not charge the customer for this step in the workflow. It's an investment they do because they know that a work of high quality means more business and more business means more revenue, so it all (customers and linguists and translation agencies will end up happy.