How to Choose a Technical Translation Company: 10 Questions Manufacturers Should Ask
To choose a technical translation company, test how it keeps terminology, numbers and units identical across languages and releases, whether it works in your original file formats, and whether the glossary and translation memory stay with you. DEMA Solutions recommends checking those points through a short pilot before comparing prices, because they decide what every future manual costs.
When is it time to look for a new technical translation company?
This guide is for the people who live with the decision: technical documentation and localization managers, technical writers, and the procurement and operations directors who sign the contract, at manufacturers of complex equipment such as HVAC, lifting, packaging and process machinery, automation or rail that export to many markets. If you are still mapping which documents your company actually needs in other languages, our guide to translation services for manufacturing walks through them one by one.
The trigger is usually a new market or product line, the approaching Machinery Regulation, a supplier who has delivered inconsistent terminology or late files once too often, pressure to cut costs without adding risk, or an acquisition that has left the group with several suppliers and several names for the same component. The questions below work for all of them.
Why choosing a technical translation company is different for manufacturers
A brochure translated badly costs you some credibility. A manual translated badly can cost you a recall, a rejected technical file or an injured technician. That is why the usual way of buying translation, comparing the price per word on three quotes, works poorly for technical documentation.
Three features of technical content change the buying decision. The first is repetition: the same component, warning and procedure appear in dozens of manuals, catalogues and HMI strings, and new machines are often variants of an existing platform. A supplier who reuses approved content well becomes cheaper and more consistent every year; one who does not starts from scratch every time.
The second is regulation. Instructions, safety information and declarations of conformity have to be in the language of the user, and the obligation sits with you as the manufacturer, not with your supplier. In a liability claim, nobody will ask which supplier translated the wrong torque value.
The third is the files. Technical content lives in DITA and other XML, CCMS output, FrameMaker, InDesign, Word and software resource files. A supplier who cannot work in them pushes the problem back to you, and someone in your team ends up copying, pasting and re-laying out text.
Whether you search for a technical translation agency, a technical translation company or engineering translation services, you are buying the same thing: a process that keeps technical language under control across languages, suppliers and years.
Generalist or specialist supplier?
Most suppliers will say yes to a manual. The difference between a generalist and a specialist shows up over time, not in the first quote. A generalist supplier translates a wide mix of content and assigns linguists according to availability. For a one-off document that can work. For a documentation set updated every few months, the weak points appear quickly: different translators on each release, no approved terminology, memories kept but not maintained, and layout subcontracted or left to you. The cheapest quote on the first manual is often the most expensive supplier by the fifth.
A specialist in engineering translation organises the work around your product, not around the order. The same linguists stay on the same product families, terminology is approved once and enforced, the memory is maintained, numbers and units are checked systematically and layout happens in your original files. The rate per word may be similar or slightly higher, but the cost per release falls as reuse grows and rework disappears.
Groups with several brands and plants often end up with both kinds of supplier at once. If that is your situation, our piece on how enterprise organisations manage translation across multiple vendors and markets explains when to consolidate and when several suppliers can work side by side.
The 10 questions to ask a technical translation company
Ask each question in a meeting, not only in a questionnaire, and ask for evidence such as a sample report or a glossary extract. Written answers tend to sound identical; the follow-up questions are where the differences show.
1. How do you keep terminology identical across languages and releases?
Ask to see how a component name travels from your glossary into a translated manual. A good answer describes an approved multilingual glossary that every translator must follow, automated checks that flag any deviation before delivery, and a simple route for your engineers or subsidiaries to approve new terms once, not in every project. The supplier should also explain how forbidden or obsolete terms are handled.
The red flag is “our translators are experts”. Expertise without a shared glossary still produces three names for the same valve. The mechanics of doing it properly are covered in our guide to keeping technical terminology consistent across translators, suppliers and markets.
2. How do you check numbers, units and tolerances?
Numbers are where technical translations fail quietly. A decimal separator, a torque value or a unit converted when it should not have been reads perfectly well and is still wrong. A good answer names the automated checks that compare every number, unit and tag between source and target, and makes a qualified reviser responsible for the result. It also covers rules agreed with you in advance, such as whether units are ever converted.
A red flag is any answer that relies on “careful proofreading” alone. A reader checking for fluency will not notice that 0.5 mm became 5 mm.
3. Who owns the translation memory and glossary, and can we export them?
Every sentence you pay to translate is stored in a translation memory. If that memory stays with the supplier, so does your investment. A good answer is short and in writing: the memory and glossary are yours, in standard exportable formats such as TMX and TBX, available at any time and on request at the end of the contract.
A red flag is hesitation, a fee for export or an offer to send “the translated files” instead of the memory. We explain the commercial logic in our piece on who owns your translation memory.
4. Can you work in our original file formats?
Ask which formats the supplier handles directly: DITA and other XML, CCMS exports, FrameMaker, InDesign, Word, software strings and firmware resource files, and what happens to tags, conditional text and cross-references on the way back. A good answer includes a test on one of your real files and a check before handback, so the file opens, builds and publishes without manual repair. If your source is a scanned or locked PDF, ask whether the supplier can make it editable first.
The red flag is a request to send everything as Word, or a handback that your team has to rebuild. Every manual step between your file and the translation adds cost and errors.
5. Who lays out the translated manual?
Translated text runs longer or shorter than the source, and callouts on exploded drawings, tables and warning panels all have to fit. A good answer is an in-house multilingual desktop publishing team working in your original layout files, with a final visual check by a native speaker.
The red flag is a third supplier for layout that you have to brief and coordinate yourself, or translated text delivered in a table for your team to paste in.
6. How do you decide between human translation and machine translation?
Most technical translation now involves machine translation somewhere. The question is how it is controlled. A good answer explains which content goes through post-editing and which stays human-led, who makes that decision, and how the engine is constrained by your glossary and memory. Safety chapters and documents for a notified body should not be treated like a spare parts list.
The red flag is either extreme: a supplier who refuses to discuss machine translation at all, or one who uses it everywhere without telling you. Our guide to when machine translation post-editing is good enough goes through the decision document type by document type.
7. Who revises the translation, and against what?
Revision means a second qualified linguist compares the translation with the source, sentence by sentence, not someone reading the target text for fluency. A good answer confirms revision on every document, names the standard the process follows (ISO 17100 is the reference for translation services) and explains how complaints feed back into the glossary and memory.
A red flag is revision offered as an optional extra, or certification that covers only the company’s management system rather than its translation process. The complete set of quality questions is in our guide to checking a translation supplier’s quality before you hire them.
8. How do our engineers and subsidiaries give feedback?
Your engineers, subsidiaries and dealers know the product better than any translator. A good answer describes review in context, a clear owner for each language, and corrections that update the glossary and memory once they are approved, within an agreed time.
The red flag is feedback by email on a marked-up PDF that disappears after the project. The same correction will then be needed again, and your Italian subsidiary or German distributor will soon stop sending it.
9. Which documents do you translate for compliance, and do you know the requirements?
Ask the supplier to describe the documents they translate for CE marking and the EU market: instructions for use, installation and maintenance manuals, safety warnings and labels, declarations of conformity and the parts of the technical file a market surveillance authority may request. A good answer shows awareness of what is changing under the Machinery Regulation and asks which markets you ship to before you tell them.
The red flag is a supplier who treats a declaration of conformity like any other page. It helps to know what EU rules require for user manual translation before that conversation, so you can judge the answer.
10. Will we have one contact who knows our products?
Technical translation goes better when the same project manager and the same linguists work on the same product families year after year. A good answer names your contact, explains how linguists are kept on your account, and describes what happens when content arrives two days before shipment.
The red flag is a shared mailbox and a different project manager each time. You will spend the first hour of every project explaining what you explained last time.
How to run a pilot project
Answers in a meeting tell you how a supplier thinks; a pilot tells you how they work. Keep it small, real and comparable: one chapter of a current manual or a batch of interface strings, in one or two languages you can check internally, in the original file format. A pilot is also the fairest way to test translation outsourcing against your current in-house process before you commit to either.
Choose a sample that contains what usually goes wrong: a safety warning, a technical data table with units and tolerances, cross-references, terms your company uses in its own way, and some already translated content so you can see how reuse is handled. Send your existing glossary and memory with it, and give every supplier the same brief and deadline.
Then evaluate what comes back on four levels. The file: does it open, build or publish without repair? Accuracy: ask a reviewer you trust, ideally a subsidiary or distributor, to check terminology, numbers and meaning against the source, counting errors that would matter to a technician rather than stylistic preferences. The process: did the supplier ask questions, flag ambiguities in your source and report what came from the memory? And your time: a supplier who needed three rounds of clarification on five pages will need more on three hundred.
Agree in advance that the pilot is paid or unpaid, and that the translated content and any memory created belong to you either way.
How to compare quotes: leverage, not the rate per word
Two quotes with different rates per word are not comparable unless you know how much of the text each supplier counts as new. Suppliers analyse technical documentation against a translation memory and sort it into exact matches, partial (fuzzy) matches, repetitions and new text, each charged differently. That analysis, often called leverage, decides the real cost far more than the headline rate.
Imagine, as an example, two suppliers quoting for the same manual. Supplier A has the lower rate but no access to your previous translations, so the whole text is counted as new. Supplier B has a higher rate but works from your memory, and the analysis shows that half of the manual is already translated. Even before you consider the time your team spends fixing inconsistencies, supplier B is likely to cost less on this manual and on every revision that follows.
When you compare quotes, ask every supplier to analyse the same files against the same memory and show the breakdown by match category with the rate applied to each. Ask whether exact matches are still checked in context, especially in safety content, and what is charged for layout and file preparation. Our article on what really drives the cost of technical manual translation goes through each cost driver in more detail.
What procurement should ask for in writing
A few contract clauses protect you far more than a discount does. Ask for written confirmation that translation memories, glossaries and term bases belong to you and will be delivered in TMX and TBX on request and at the end of the relationship. Ask for the certification scope (ISO 17100 for the translation process), a description of the revision step, a confidentiality agreement covering drawings and unreleased products, and data handling rules, including whether your content may be used to train any external machine translation engine.
Add the elements that make costs visible over time: rates per language and match category, layout charges, minimum and urgency charges, and a regular leverage report showing how much of each order came from reuse. Operations and quality directors will also want turnaround commitments, a complaint procedure and a named escalation contact. None of this is unusual, and a supplier who resists it is telling you something.
Onboarding: starting from your existing memories and glossaries
The first project with a new supplier should not start from zero. Most manufacturers already hold a great deal of approved language: memories from previous suppliers, glossaries in spreadsheets, translated manuals in PDF or InDesign. A good onboarding imports the memories, cleans duplicates and contradictory translations, and consolidates glossaries into one approved term base, with your engineers or subsidiaries confirming the terms that matter most. Where you have past translations but no memory, the source and translated documents can be aligned to rebuild one, which is the job of translation memory alignment. A short style guide, recording decisions such as forms of address, unit conventions and how warnings are phrased, saves the same questions being asked on every project.
Onboarding should cost your team a few hours, mostly on terminology decisions only you can make. If you are asked to re-brief on every order, it was not done.
Switching supplier without disrupting releases
Changing a technical translation company sounds risky when a release is due, which is why many manufacturers stay too long with a supplier that no longer fits. Plan the switch around your release calendar. Start by requesting your memories and glossaries from the current supplier in TMX and TBX, ideally before you announce the change. Run the pilot on content from a product family that is not about to ship, then move one product line or one language group at a time, rather than everything at once. Keep the old supplier on work already in progress until it is delivered, so no project is split mid-way. Agree with the new supplier how the leverage from your existing memory will be shown in the first quotes, so you can see immediately that you are not paying again for content you already own. A fuller plan, from checking the contract to running the pilot, is set out in our guide to changing translation supplier without losing your memory.
The Machinery Regulation deadline
The Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 applies from 20 January 2027 and replaces the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC. For documentation teams it brings both an opportunity and a workload. Instructions may be supplied in digital form, but the user can ask for a paper copy free of charge at the time of purchase, and where machinery is intended for, or can reasonably be expected to be used by, non-professional users, the safety information essential for putting it into service and using it safely must be provided on paper. Instructions still have to be in a language easily understood by users, as determined by each Member State where the machine is placed on the market.
Many manufacturers will revise manuals, safety sections and declarations of conformity before that date, creating translation peaks across several languages at once. A supplier chosen in the last quarter before the deadline will be learning your products while you are trying to ship. Our article on Machinery Regulation 2023/1230 translation and documentation compliance sets out what changes for instructions and how to plan the work.
How DEMA Solutions works with manufacturers
For more than 20 years we have translated the documents that ship with a machine: operating and maintenance manuals, installation instructions, safety procedures, declarations of conformity, spare parts catalogues and interface texts. Our technical translation services run on an ISO 17100 certified process, under certificate TRD21015 issued by CSI and audited each year, and our teams work across Italy, Serbia and Spain.
Here is how we would answer the ten questions ourselves:
- Terminology before translation. Your glossary and memory are set up before the first job, so a new release opens with language you have already approved.
- Revision you can name. A second qualified linguist revises every translation against the source, and in sensitive projects translations reused from the memory are checked again.
- A route chosen per document. Specialist human translation or controlled machine translation with post-editing, depending on risk, volume and how the text is used.
- Layout in your own files. DITA, S1000D, XML, FrameMaker, InDesign or Word, laid out by our in-house DTP team, with PDFs made editable when no source exists.
- Assets you can take away. Memory, glossary and termbase are yours, delivered in TMX and TBX, and leverage reports show what each order reused.
The approach is easiest to judge on a real account. An Italian maker of industrial equipment exports most of its production, and many new machines are variants of an existing design. Its manuals now pass through one managed process, in which the memory recognises repeated content across variants, an approved glossary fixes component names and the same linguists stay on the same product families. You can read how it works in our case study on technical documentation for an industrial manufacturer.
Where TUBE fits
This guide keeps asking how much of each release you pay for twice. With TUBE, a transparent leverage report answers that on every job. The solution is configured for your files, in any of 91 formats, and approved translations go into a memory you own and can take with you.
Frequently asked questions
It translates documents such as manuals, technical specifications, safety information, catalogues and software texts, using specialist translators, terminology management, translation memory and quality checks, and usually delivers the result in the original file format, ready to publish.
The terms are used interchangeably in searches and in the market. What matters is not the label but the process: terminology control, memory reuse, revision by a second linguist and the ability to work in your file formats.
Translation of engineering content such as specifications, drawings, calculations, test reports and technical files. The same selection criteria apply: subject-matter translators, approved terminology and systematic checks on numbers and units.
Ask every supplier to analyse the same files against the same translation memory and show the breakdown by match category and the rate applied to each. The rate per word alone is misleading, because reuse and rework change the real cost over several releases.
Yes, if you own the translation memory and glossary and can export them in standard formats. Request both before you change, so the new supplier starts from your approved content. Where only translated documents exist, they can be aligned with the source to rebuild a memory.
For complex content, subject knowledge matters. In practice, an approved glossary, the same linguists on your product families and a second qualified reviser do more for accuracy than any single translator's background.
Compare us against your current supplier
If you are choosing a technical translation company, or wondering whether your current one still fits, send us one of your manuals for a review. We will tell you how we would handle its terminology, formats and memory, and what that means for your next release.
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