Machinery and Electronics

We handle enormous volumes of documents that require specialized knowledge such as machinery and electrical component manuals.The production machinery/components industry drives the electronics industry, which is a key Japanese industry, but while the domestic market is maturing, overseas markets are expanding rapidly, resulting in a tremendous increase in translation of all kinds of documents. ICOS handles a wide range of translation, from highly specialized and very technical manual translation, to sophisticated marketing/communications translation.

Are you having trouble with your machinery/electronic components industry translation?

  • I want to localize our manuals, but I don’t know who to turn to…
  • I have a huge volume of different kinds of spec sheets I want to translate…
  • Translating contacts has been slow and troublesome…

Translating manuals and other materials for the machinery and electronic components industry requires experience and understanding of specialized vocabulary, and the knowledge required depends on the product genre. A translation service should be chosen on the basis of whether or not it has a dependable network of people with industry experience.

ICOS translation service is chosen from the machinery and electronic components companies for the following kinds of reasons.

Reason 1We use translators who hail from manufacturing industries.

We carefully select translators with experience in specialized fields such as working at large domestic comprehensive plant construction firms or large machine tool makers. We also choose translators with long experience in manual translation itself, such as people with long freelance careers. We have a global network that allows us to provide high-quality translation in specialized areas, achieving a level of quality that can satisfy our manufacturing customers. We have an established reputation for the quality of our manual translations.

Reason 2We handle even large volumes of documents rapidly.

At ICOS, we consider quantity to be a part of quality. Even with large volumes of manuals and other documents we can respond with surprising speed using distributed processing and centralized management of translation resources. We make full use of tools such as style guides, terminology management, and translation memory in order to simultaneously lower costs and deliver accurate translations. In this way we can handle continuous documents and revisions/changes smoothly and quickly.

Reason 3We lower our customers’ translation costs.

By outsourcing manual translation we can move more quickly and at lower cost than by having in-house resources. For manual translation we make full use of both our human network and efficiency-raising tools in order to optimize the balance between quality and cost. There are no rush charges for translations with tight deadlines, and so you can order manual translation with peace of mind.

Manuals and other documents in the machinery and electronic components fields we handle

  • Material safety data sheets (MSDS)/Orgalime documents/All kinds of spec sheets/Emissions trading contracts
  • New shipbuilding technical spec sheets
  • Semiconductor production equipment spec sheets/Optical equipment catalogs/Measuring instruments catalogs
  • Railway car spec sheets/Vehicle inspection operations manuals/Brake technical manuals
  • Aircraft engine joint development agreements
  • Airline maintenance manuals
  • Automotive engine training manuals

Customer voices

  • ICOS always does a great job of handling our requests, even though they are often on short notice. They make reference to previous versions and so there are no extra costs, and they work on short deadlines, for which we are very grateful.

We introduce some machinery and electronic translators carefully selected by ICOS

  • Translator H

    I worked at an automaker for about 15 years, and then after doing onsite interpretation and translation, I’ve been a freelance translator for about 5 years.

I’ve read the materials of all kinds of firms over the years. Now as a dedicated translator I’m not on the front lines, which is hard in a way, but I do the best I can to approach the tone and style of each company in my translations. In technical translation the technology is changing every day, and I greedily absorb technical information; I want to expand the scope of what I can handle.

  • Translator U

    I worked as a multilingual language coordinator and project manager for domestic and foreign translation agencies for over eight years, and went independent in 2010. I do English to Japanese and Russian to Japanese translation, and I’m experienced in IT, automotive, and construction machinery, among other fields.

In automotive, construction machinery, IT product, and other translation where there is a physical object involved, I make sure I understand the basic construction of the product before a start translating. Without sufficient understanding of the basic construction of the product it is hard do understand the purpose and arrangement of new functions, which can result in a disjointed translation. In automotive, motorcycle, or IT-related areas, I work to use language easy to understand for an amateur, but also do the research to make sure that I’m using the technical terms and widely-used expressions so that the translation does not look unnatural when read by people steeped in these fields as well. I’m always striving to improve readability and precision; naturally a translator must work to use accurate expressions, but I make use of my experience as a translation coordinator and product manager to make ad hoc adjustments from the perspective of the customer.