symantec™
TESTIMONIAL by
Fred Hollowood & Orla Clifford,
Global Language Services, Symantec.
Symantec
is a global leader in infrastructure software, enabling businesses
and consumers to have confidence in a connected world. The
company helps customers protect their infrastructure, information,
and interactions by delivering software and services that address
risks to security, availability, compliance, and performance.
Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Symantec has operations
in 40 countries.
Within Idiom WorldServer, the Fuzzy Score is set here to 75%.
SYSTRAN automatically translates segments lower than this threshold.
Translators review coloured segments within the Browser Workbench.
« Our main objective is to offer quality product documentation
and technical support to our international customers in a cost
effective manner. With the roll-out of our global content management
system, we have control over our documentation production process.
Our metrics show a 100% increase in word counts managed by our
internal translation team since the introduction of SYSTRAN technologies
into our localization process. Automated translation software is
a powerful innovation when integrated into a streamlined translation
workflow. It clearly boosts our globalization capacities. »
Fred Hollowood & Orla Clifford,
Global Language Services, Symantec.
| Challenges |
Solutions |
Results |
- International customers to service with a variety of content
and formats
- Product documentation published in 20+ languages
- Technical Support content delivered in multiple languages
- To help and support international customers in their own
languages
|
- Integrate SYSTRAN Translation Technology with an online
global content management workflow system
- Automatically translate with SYSTRAN no match segments
in translation memories
- Product Documentation and Technical
Support content in English, translated in French, German
and Japanese
- Chinese, Spanish and Italian localisation as a second
step
|
- Personal productivity for internal translation team doubled
- A cost effective solution which makes it possible to increase
volume of translated content
- Address translation projects with scalability and cost
control
- Control terminology and streamline methodology to smoothly
enable new language pairs
|
What are the main reasons that invoked your
interest in machine translation for use within your Global Language
Services department?
Symantec operates in more than 40 countries. As a leader in IT
infrastructure, we deliver sophisticated products and services
to international customers. As an international company, we focus
on globalization early in the process. Our Global Language Services
division addresses the needs of localized product documentation
and technical support content. With multiple acquisitions completed
in the last number of years, Symantec’s globalization requirements
are complex and diverse. Faced with these increasing needs, we
chose to evaluate a rapid, cost-effective translation technology.
Our goal is to reduce translation costs to 35% and reduce translation
time by 66%, while maintaining quality standards. What are the main reasons that invoked your interest in machine
translation for use within your Global Language Services department?
Symantec operates in more than 40 countries. As a leader in IT
infrastructure, we deliver sophisticated products and services
to international customers. As an international company, we focus
on globalization early in the process. Our Global Language Services
division addresses the needs of localized product documentation
and technical support content. With multiple acquisitions completed
in the last number of years, Symantec’s globalization requirements
are complex and diverse. Faced with these increasing needs, we
chose to evaluate a rapid, cost-effective translation technology.
Our goal is to reduce translation costs to 35% and reduce translation
time by 66%, while maintaining quality standards.
Can you describe the first steps of your machine translation project?
We started this project by integrating SYSTRAN technology with
Trados Translation Memory technology. Our internal linguistic
teams quickly gained confidence in maintaining customer specific
dictionaries and post editing. Indeed they doubled their personal
throughput of translation content provision over the first six
months of the project. After this initial success, we integrated
MT with Idiom’s WorldServer system and applied this model
to all of our workflow enabled translation resources.
How did you choose SYSTRAN among the other competitors?
We chose SYSTRAN from among a range of MT technology suppliers
for the following reasons:
- They provided a comprehensive language spread for global deployment .
- The rules based approach allowed us to begin translation without
significant engine training
- Their client-server based solution
allowed centralisation of customer specific dictionaries in
addition to general
scalability.
- The robust well documented API allows us to integrate this
technology with other third party language technology tools.
- The
customisability of the solution has allowed us to quickly tailor
the technology and process to our various requirements.
Can you describe your customised solution for product documentation?
The basic idea is to use machine translation in tandem with a computer-aided
translation tool. We never intended to ‘replace’ human
translation but instead wanted to assist professional translators
with innovative tools. We developed an application to link machine
translation processes between SYSTRAN and Trados. We called it
SymGlue (i.e. Symantec Global Language User Environment). In short the process leverages existing translations from Trados
TM’s and then exports lower value or no match segments to
a TMX file.
We then pass this file to SYSTRAN for machine translation and
finally re-import the machine translated TMX file back into the
Product Translation Memory. We have used this process on a variety
of content including Product Documentation and Technical Support
in a variety of languages, specifically Japanese, Simplified Chinese,
French, German, Italian and Spanish. Underpinning this solution
is a robust and well embedded practice among our Infodev writers
of authoring content in a controlled way. We have deployed controlled
language checking software (acrocheck) to help our writing teams
in this practice.
What were your results once you introduced machine translation
into your translation process?
In a very short time, the throughput of our internal translation
team doubled from an average translation throughput of 1500 words
per day to 3000 words. When applying this process to larger documentation
sets we have aimed and achieved an increase in throughput of up
to 60% in some languages.
With the roll-out of Idiom WorldServer in 2006 and the SYSTRAN
integration with same, we expect to further increase our productivity.
The integration of SYSTRAN and Idiom WorldServer give us a completely
automated translation process. We gain control on delivery timing
and have the potential to deliver ever increasing amounts of previously
untranslated content.
How do SYSTRAN and Idiom WorldServer work together?
Both companies have extensive API’s which facilitated their
integration in our process. Future innovations in the development
of both products will allow for an ever tighter, more seamless
integration. What are the points you appreciate in SYSTRAN translation technology?
Apart the overall good translation
quality for
the off-the-shelf engine, we appreciate the powerful customization capabilities within
the SYSTRAN modules. With SYSTRAN Translation Style Sheets, we
were able to manage Framemaker and XML specific tags within the
product documentation content, neutralising the potential issue
that they present to a MT engine. We are now starting to use this
XML-aware technology to provide context sensitive translation based
on XML tags or Framemaker elements. We are also interested by the
new metrics proposed in SYSTRAN version 6, in particular the complexity
and the confidence scores to have more control on the translation
reliability and accuracy.
TESTIMONIAL
BY: James Mentele, Information Scientist with Dow Corning Corporation
had these comments about Systran Software.
Accuracy - "Systran
is superior to other translation systems that we have examined."
Overall
Productivity - "In our experience, Systran
is superior to other translation software. It is excellent for assimilation
and can be a great aid to a less-than-fluent multilingual person.
We believe that we will have a distinct competitive advantage if
we can enable workers to produce work-products as fast, safely and
accurately as possible (usually in the person's native tongue).
but tie that activity into global projects and workflow for greatest
leverage of impact."
Completeness - "Systran
excels compared to other software tools that we have investigated
- both in breadth of specialized dictionaries, as well as features
like proper nouns (name) extraction, .nfw (not found word) file
to highlight potential problems, romanji transliteration of English
and katakana/hiragana of Japanese."
Cost Savings - "The
seconds of machine time per page with Systran is dramatically less
than the hours per page of a human translator. It doesn't take many
pages to recover the cost of the PC and the Systran Software."
Manpower Savings
- A major strategy of a global company is to achieve improved results
with fewer people-hours by being able to leverage specialized skills
and knowledge worldwide. Such a goal is not realistic without the
ability to translate work products. Translations of such volumes
and subject are not realistic without large numbers of multilingual
domain experts. Systrans's specialized dictionaries greatly reduce
the need for such rare capabilities. Our studies have shown that
the time spent by employees translating reports in 1993 was equivalent
to salary and benefits of the $6 million in Japan alone."
Time Savings - "The
biggest time savings occurs for employees who must translate their
work products (monthly reports, project status reports, etc.) into
another language (primarily English) for management."
TESTIMONIAL BY: The National Air Intelligence Center's 28-Year
Relationship with SYSTRAN Software, Inc. A Case Study
Agency Description - The
National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC) at Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base, Ohio, is the Air Force's single all-source aerospace
intelligence center. Its mission is to support the war fighter,
the acquisition community and the national policy maker by acquiring,
collecting, analyzing, producing and disseminating foreign aerospace
intelligence to the U.S. Air Force, the unified commands, sister
services, other members of the intelligence community and allies.
The NAIC was formed in 1993 by combining the Foreign Aerospace
Science Technology Center, which focuses primarily on the production
of scientific and technical intelligence, and the 480th Intelligence
Group, which focuses on the preparation of cockpit-oriented target
material and mission planning intelligence. In 1994 the 497th Intelligence
Group Directorate of Assessments, which provides analysis support
directly to the Air Staff and other intelligence organizations in
the Washington, D.C. area, was integrated into NAIC. The consolidation
of these three units resulted in a signification mission expansion
enabling NAIC to provide fully integrated intelligence products
tailored to customer requirements. The NAIC has a staff of approximately
1,700 people.
SYSTRAN's Involvement with the NAIC
In 1968 SYSTRAN Software Inc. was contracted to develop
Russian-to-English machine translation for the U.S. Air Force through
a predecessor agency of NAIC. In 1969 the first SYSTRAN system was
tested at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Since 1970, the system
has continued to provide translations for the USAF's Foreign Technology
Division. SYSTRAN was used by NASA during the joint US-USSR Apollo-Soyuz
space project in 1974-75.
SYSTRAN translation software is used at more than 30 sites
within the intelligence community. SYSTRAN's Russian-into-English
machine translation program now includes more than a half million
words and operates at more than 90 percent accuracy on technical
texts.
Translation Needs - The
National Air Intelligence Center has extensive translation requirements
in terms of languages and documentation, although a description
of translation requirements is not available.
Currently NAIC translates technical texts, foreign language journal
articles, and systems documentation from nine languages into English
using SYSTRAN Software. As part of its current five-year contract
with NAIC, SYSTRAN will create machine translation systems for several
Eastern European languages, including the first-ever Serbo-Croatian-into-English
machine translation software program.
Translation Strategy - SYSTRAN
Software is used organization-wide for quick information. It is
used by the Translation Services Department for edited and finished
translations.
NAIC has a government-wide unclassified network called
"NAIC Open Source Information Service (NAIC OSIS)." This
network uses nine SYSTRAN systems to translate text for Internet
Websites submitted by government users. This is now being migrated
to a secret network and to a top secret network called Interlink.
As a result, SYSTRAN software is accessible on three different networks
from NAIC's Home Page on the World Wide Web for use by the entire
U.S. intelligence community.
Benefits of SYSTRAN Software - "The
most heralded aspect of machine translation from user surveys over
the past 15 years has been time savings." The agency also notes
that "The most heralded aspect of machine translation
from user surveys over the past 15 years has been time savings."
The agency also notes that using SYSTRAN results
in manpower savings, cost savings and an increase in overall productivity
.
TESTIMONIAL
BY: Autodesk
Autodesk Chooses Systran for Multilingual
Customer Support
Autodesk's Evaluation Process:
Autodesk conducted an informal but comprehensive evaluation of MT
products before selecting SYSTRAN for its application. A test suite
of representative technical articles was provided to potential MT
providers, and the results were reviewed by Autodesk's linguists
and technical support staff. The review focused on identifying translation
results that were useful and understandable, despite the stylistic
and grammatical errors that MT systems inevitably produce.
Autodesk followed a software-development approach to evaluating
SYSTRAN. Errors were reported back to the SYSTRAN team. SYSTRAN
then fixed the errors and submitted revised versions of the system
to Autodesk for verification that the changes had been made. This
process allowed Autodesk to observe both the responsiveness of the
SYSTRAN team and the enhancement potential of the technology.
Autodesk cited three factors in the selection of SYSTRAN from a
field of competitors. The first was that SYSTRAN's output quality
reached the threshold of intelligibility that Autodesk felt was
needed to make its deployment successful. The AltaVista deployment
of SYSTRAN for multilingual Web page browsing gave Autodesk confidence
in SYSTRAN's scalability. Less tangible, but equally important,
was the impression that SYSTRAN understood Autodesk's needs better
than other providers and could work with Autodesk to tune the system
to its unique texts.
SYSTRAN CEO Dimitris Sabatakakis also believes SYSTRAN's ongoing
extensive development work was an important factor. The system is
undergoing a major revamping of its dictionary structure that will
allow it to leverage its enormous lexical resources more quickly
and efficiently.
Autodesk's Multilingual Customer
Support Application
The Company: Autodesk is the
developer of AutoCAD, a computer-assisted design (CAD) software
platform. Most of the company's applications for specific design
requirements, such as architectural and mechanical design, multimedia,
manufacturing, construction, and geographic information systems,
rest on the AutoCAD platform. Autodesk products are used by more
than 4 million design professionals. Based in San Rafael, California,
Autodesk has offices in 60 other locations worldwide. John Walker
founded the company in 1982. The company will have revenue of approximately
$1 billion in 2001.
Business Rationale: With more
than 60% of its business conducted outside the United States, Autodesk
is a case study for the challenges of information dissemination
and management in a multilingual environment. One of Autodesk's
most pressing challenges is supporting customers across many languages
in a cost-efficient manner. Autodesk provides customer support through
a database of more than 10,000 articles that are accessible from
its Web site. The articles, which average 1,000 words in length,
are written in English only, are highly technical, and are specific
to design issues for various industries.
Unlike the highly dynamic content in chat, email, and message boards
that has been the focus of previous Internet MT applications, Autodesk's
content is relatively stable. Once posted, the text of articles
rarely changes, and only a few hundred new articles are added each
month. The database receives an average of 500,000 hits per business
day.
Although the percentage of hits that require translation is unknown,
the potential volume of translation is very large given the size
of the database and the number of users and languages. Frequently
requested articles will be pretranslated and cached to allow instant
delivery to customers and to reduce the load on the translation
servers.
Autodesk acknowledges that without MT it would not be able to deliver
multilingual customer support comparable to what it provides to
English-speaking customers. Mirko Plitt, process analyst in Autodesk's
Worldwide Localization department, states that SYSTRAN's "innovative
customization approach was the only answer to our international
customers' need for a multilingual product support knowledge base:
translations produced by general-purpose MT systems are of little
use to our non-English-speaking clients, and a translation workflow
involving human intervention was not a realistic option. The specific
machine translation solution developed by SYSTRAN maximizes the
benefit our customers get from the Product Support Web site and
further increases the quality of service provided by Autodesk.
TESTIMONIAL BY:Fisher-Rosemount System, Inc.'s
Experience With SYSTRAN Software, Inc. A Case Study
Company Description - - The
Fisher-Rosemount family of companies is the world's largest process
management supplier. Fisher-Rosemount not only leads in many global
market segments, but it also has the industry's broadest process-automation
offering, including process management systems, control valves,
regulators, transmitters, analyzers and related services. Fisher-Rosemount,
Inc., is a world-leading supplier of process management systems
and services. The company, headquartered in Austin, Texas, maintains
key manufacturing and technology centers in Burnsville, Minn.; La
Habra, Calif.; Cambridge, Ontario (Canada); Leicester, England;
and Singapore. Fisher-Rosemount Systems offers three process management
systems, each of which reflects the company's long heritage as a
pacesetter in process automation. The company, which was established
in 1956 as Rosemount Inc., now has approximately 1,000 employees.
Translation Needs - Fisher-Rosemount
Systems, Inc. has extensive translation requirements in terms of
languages and documentation. Materials that need translation are
sent to SYSTRAN Software, Inc. via E-mail, translated into final,
edited copy at SYSTRAN's world headquarters in La Jolla, and returned
electronically. Fisher-Rosemount requires translation of approximately
400 pages per year.
Translation Software Language Pairs: English German, French,
Russian, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese. Types of Documentation:
Customer manuals for both hardware and software product.
Translation Strategy - - The
Fisher-Rosemount family of companies is the world's largest process
management supplier. Fisher-Rosemount not only leads in many global
market segments, but it also has the industry's broadest process-automation
offering, including process management systems, control valves,
regulators, transmitters, analyzers and related services. Fisher-Rosemount,
Inc., is a world-leading supplier of process management systems
and services. The company, headquartered in Austin, Texas, maintains
key manufacturing and technology centers in Burnsville, Minn.; La
Habra, Calif.; Cambridge, Ontario (Canada); Leicester, England;
and Singapore. Fisher-Rosemount Systems offers three process management
systems, each of which reflects the company's long heritage as a
pacesetter in process automation. The company, which was established
in 1956 as Rosemount Inc., now has approximately 1,000 employees.
Translation Needs - Fisher-Rosemount
Systems, Inc. has extensive translation requirements in terms of
languages and documentation. Materials that need translation are
sent to SYSTRAN Software, Inc. via E-mail, translated into final,
edited copy at SYSTRAN's world headquarters in La Jolla, and returned
electronically. Fisher-Rosemount requires translation of approximately
400 pages per year.
Language Pairs: English German, French, Russian, Spanish,
Chinese and Japanese. Types of Documentation: Customer manuals for
both hardware and software product.
Translation Strategy - Previously,
translation was handled in various foreign countries on an as-needed
basis. In 1992 Fisher-Rosemount began relying on SYSTRAN for
translations of technical manuals. The relationship has been
effective because of SYSTRAN Software's "speed and cost."
Benefits of SYSTRAN Software Translation
Services - "Having one source for translation
regardless of the language is a great convenience.
SYSTRAN Software, Inc. is very strong
in machine translation. The people we work with at SYSTRAN
are very knowledgeable of computer-aided translation and the Interleaf
program.
It's a great time-saver to receive
the translated files electronically in the proper format. We
receive excellent phone, fax and E-mail response to questions and
problems. We are working with SYSTRAN to develop a methodology to
minimize the costs of revisions within the translated documents.
A weakness in the process is the absence of translation support
for on-line help systems in Windows NT."
TESTIMONIAL BY:Gaumont Newsreel Archives
SYSTRAN Chosen
to Translate its French Online Newsreel Catalogue for the Global
Marketplace
When Stuart McKay, a freelance film archive researcher,
was looking for historical footage of the First World War for a
new British TV series, he naturally turned to the Web for information
about relevant holdings in French film archives. France, the birthplace
of cinema, has a vast range of holdings of early film in its military
and government archives. But what made Stuart's search particularly
fruitful was the availability of a remarkable online database listing
the complete historical footage held in the Cinématique Gaumont
newsreel archives. And above all, the ability to search this database
in the universal language of professional media searchers - English.
The Cinématique Gaumont is a French film library offering
the largest range of French language newsreel and other film holdings
of its kind. Information about the archive is accessible via the
Internet, offering film researchers an unparalleled database for
searching cultural and historical material on celluloid, viewing
excerpts and then ordering them. To render this facility as universally
accessible as possible to researchers like Stuart McKay, Gaumont
contracted SYSTRAN to provide an ondemand translation solution that
would enable researchers to retrieve the database and read its film
descriptions in English. Gaumont has been able to substantially
grow its market for newsreel film archive users by combining the
ease of access afforded by an online database with the communicative
effectiveness of SYSTRAN's Machine Translation technology.
TESTIMONIAL BY: Price Waterhouse Cooper
Use and Cost Savings:
Based on the success of an initial deployment in Spain, other countries
were added one at a time by customizing the system for each new
language and adding authenticated access for the users in that country.
PwC paid for the service under a global agreement, with individual
countries paying for the cost of local customization (that is, adding
PwC-specific and department specific vocabulary to the generic translation
dictionaries). List price for a machine translation desktop software
license is approximately $1,000, whereas a corporate service, including
setup costs, ranges from $13,500 per annum for 100 users with five
language pairs to $77,200 per annum for unlimited users and five
language pairs.
Results: As with
most deployments of machine translation, PwC found the main benefit
for users to be understanding the gist of documents in a language
they do not speak well. The following uses have been identified
to date.
. A major use is translating the results of Web searches
of internal or external sites. Finding the relevant content and
Web pages prior to translation is a separate and ongoing issue.
PwC's selected search engine does not yet support cross-lingual
search (as is the case with most major search engines), and smaller
vendors with good cross-lingual search were difficult to scale for
global needs.
. Management personnel use the system to get the main
ideas from text that they don't understand (for example, internal
documents, meeting minutes, client documents, e-mail from overseas
clients) to decide whether to have human translation. Frequently,
opportunities can be identified by homing in on document types where
a significant amount of human translation is already performed,
but where understanding the gist is enough for some portion of the
documentation (for example, in a time-critical application such
as an investment opportunity, where the time delays in professionally
translating all relevant documentation would cause missed deadlines).
. Use of the system has allowed specialists to be
assigned to project teams where they may not be skilled in the team's
language. The machine translation system is used to translate agendas,
minutes and project documentation. What helps make this application
workable is knowing the context of the documentation (that is, understanding
what the project is about, knowing the subject matter and knowing
the nature of the document).
. Non-English speakers may use the system to create
a document in English, if they do not know the relevant terminology.
This is used only for internally targeted documents that are not
worth translating professionally. Users become familiar with how
to tailor their original text to help the system work better (for
example, by using simple, unambiguous language and sentence constructions).
In PwC's case, members of the translation department do not use
the machine translation system, because they prefer to use traditional
translation tools. The system is not appropriate for legal documents
(for example, judgments or statutes) or text that may have legal
ramifications. It works well with highly technical documents, but
not where the language is abstract or philosophical. Longer term,
PwC aims to integrate machine translation with its e-mail system
so that users can see the two languages side by side.
Critical Success Factors/Lessons
Learned: Factors that helped this project become successful
included:
. Gaining buy-in from the professional translators
to help evaluate and customize the system, even if they are not
the target users
. Making the business case that this is a knowledge
management tool targeted at individual productivity, rather than
for quantifiable cost savings
. Setting realistic expectations as to the constraints
of the technology; the logon screen has a "health" warning
telling users what the system can do
. Creating a user interface that allows users to access
translation functionality from any application or intranet site
without leaving their documents
. Establishing a global license that makes it straight
forward to add new country sites
. Making the system customizable for each country
(and even individual, if desired). If more budget were available,
PwC would have performed more customization to specific businesses,
as this makes a big difference in the quality of the translation.
Bottom Line: Enterprises
with global operations should examine how machine translation can
improve access to internal documentation and international Web and
intranet sites, as well as enhancing collaboration between employees
in different countries. The technology is not ready for creating
documents for external consumption and is not necessarily a benefit
for professional translators.
Copyright 2002 CS-17-9077, 26 September
2002
See full version of this case study - click
here
TESTIMONIAL
BY: DaimlerChrysler
The Company: The
1998 merger of Daimler-Benz AG with the Chrysler Corporation formed
one of the world's largest automotive companies. The new entity,
DaimlerChrysler (DC) employs more than 372,500 people in 37 countries.
The company's brands include Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge,
Freightliner, Setra, Smart and Sterling. The DaimlerChrysler Services
division is a leading provider of financial services. The company's
total revenues were $136.1 billion in 2001.
Communication Challenges:
With its large multinational workforce, the newly formed
DaimlerChrysler faced substantial communication challenges in integrating
its operations centers in Germany and the United States. Although
the company has two official languages - German and English - the
level of language skills varies considerably among DaimlerChrysler
employees. While most German speaking DC employees can speak some
English, not all are able to do so with the ease and accuracy that
is needed for effective working relationships. Among the English-speaking
staff, very few have any knowledge of German at all. For both groups,
understanding corporate documentation written in a different language
may be difficult or impossible.
Many of DaimlerChrysler's company-internal documents,
such as human resources materials, are professionally translated
and published for employees. But the merger increased the number
of informal day-to-day communications among employees in the United
States and Germany.
These interactions, which include email messages,
internal Web pages containing message boards or corporate documentation,
and other unpublished company texts, were difficult for employees
with limited language skills. Traditional human translation was
not a viable solution because of the volume, transience and immediate
delivery requirements of informal communications. In addition, human
translation would be prohibitively costly.
Evaluating MT Solutions:
As U.S. and German interactions increased following the merger,
DaimlerChrysler's Language Services Department began to receive
numerous requests for automated translation support. With the popular
success of machine translation applications such as AltaVista, many
DC employees had witnessed firsthand the benefits, as well as the
potential pitfalls of machine translation software. In response
to the many inquiries, Edith Kroupa, DC's manager of language technology
implementation, organized an evaluation of machine translation solutions
and their ability to meet DaimlerChrysler's unique requirements.
Four commercial MT systems participated in the evaluation. The evaluation
entailed building a profile of DaimlerChrysler's requirements, identifying
the features of the MT systems, and comparing the fit between the
two.
The chief considerations
for DaimlerChrysler were:
! German-English bidirectional language pairs
! No installation of client software
! Seamless integration with DC's IT environment
! Low performance costs
! No maintenance requirements
! Ease of use and access
With thousands of employees, DaimlerChrysler recognized that installation
of client software would create enormous maintenance burdens for
IT staff. As a result, a centralized server installation, and integration
with DC's IT environment was essential. Low performance costs were
also important to achieving a return on investment because the potential
volume of translation was very large. Since very few DaimlerChrysler
employees were familiar with translation technology, ease of use
was also an important consideration. The company also evaluated
the quality of translation among the four systems using a combination
of published studies and internal testing of DC documents. Of the
four systems, SYSTRAN met best DaimlerChrysler's requirements for
ease of integration, low performance costs, language pairs and translation
quality.
The current production system is used by 25,000 DaimlerChrysler
employees for the translation of Web pages, emails and corporate
documents. Users access SYSTRAN using a browser-based interface
that interacts with a central SYSTRAN intranet server located within
DaimlerChrysler. The terminology dictionaries used by SYSTRAN are
maintained by Language Services to ensure consistent terminology
usage and complete coverage of DaimlerChrysler vocabulary. Language
Services also operates a help desk for SYSTRAN users. SYSTRAN's
staff has worked closely with the Language Services group to provide
technical support and customization during the implementation phase.
Results and Future Plans:
DaimlerChrysler has seen an increase
in the productivity and effectiveness of informal business communications
through the use of SYSTRAN. The production system currently
processes more than 4,000 translation requests each week. DaimlerChrysler
conducted user acceptance studies during the implementation process.
The results showed that although users recognized the limitations
of non-customized machine translation, they still found it to be
a useful tool for translating informal communications. Based on
the success of the implementation, Daimler Chrysler is preparing
to launch SYSTRAN machine translation capabilities on the company's
employee portal. This will extend the reach of the technology to
a broader range of users, and a wider variety of document types.
Additional language pairs will be deployed based on the needs of
users.
The DaimlerChrysler MT story is unique because the
initiative to deploy machine translation originated with employees,
not company management. Historically, management-driven imperatives
to deploy MT within corporations have met with limited acceptance,
especially within corporate translation departments. The initiative
of DC employees in the choice to use MT has been instrumental to
its success. It also illustrates the powerful impact that Internet
MT applications have had for individuals, who in turn can evangelize
the benefits of MT technology within their companies. This grassroots
motive for MT deployment may be a bellwether for corporate implementations
of the future.
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