STAR Quality Process

STAR's quality process starts before translation begins. There are 6 key areas in our process.

1. Clean Information at the Core. 
2. Terminology Management 
3. Translation Process
4. Translation Quality Management 
5. In-Context Review 
6. Final Handoff.

1. Clean Information at the Core. 
STAR believes that having clean information at the start is key to any successful multilingual project. Often a layout issue generated in the original English document may not be picked up until translation begins. If this happens, the issue then has to be fixed in every language - which is a lot of repeat work. So, at the very outset of every project, STAR reviews all documents submitted to it to check for potential translation issues in advance. This makes the entire process cleaner and easier for the client.

2. Terminology Management and Style Guide 
Before translation begins, we review the English documentation from the terminology point of view. We would recommend that all our clients to define their terminology before translation. For some types of documentation, certain words will remain in English, whilst others may be translated in a some special form. Building a terminology base first ensures the quality of your translation as your documents will then be translated in a consistent manner to match it. This also aids the interpretation of the final translated document by your readers. STAR utilizes its own commercial terminology tool, Termstar, to allow storage of your terminology for use on all your projects.

3. Translation Process
STAR believes that quality translation begins with good people. Most projects are carried out in-house by STAR translators and project managers, thus ensuring a consistent relationship with the client that delivers consistent quality. STAR selects its translators for each particular client on the basis of 3 specific criteria. Each team member is rated on a) their native language skills, b) their industry-specific skills, and c) their technical ability to work on different types of projects.

We strive to always have the same people work on your projects. So, for you as our client we can  constantly improve your process and translation quality, building on your translation assets and our translation skills.

STAR works in many industries with many file formats for its clients so we focus on delivering the best process and best translation team for each one.

Translation System and Storage 

All your translations are stored in the STAR Transit translation memory system. This is a database that stores every line of translation we ever do for you. So you never have to pay to have the same sentence translated twice. This reduces costs and, combined with Termstar, delivers consistent quality translations.

Transit allows our translators to search for similar terms and paragraphs that you may have had translated before in order to ensure accurate translation every time.

4. Translation Quality Management 
Following the translation process, your translations are proofread by a separate team. This ensures quality as a second pair of eyes will always read your translation in context. Any errors or interpretation issues are relayed back to the translator for fixing. Often during this phase, our team can find text that requires clarification by the client. After the original source document is read, questions can often arise as to whether the translation or indeed the original text fully and accurately reflects the originally intended meaning.  Our proofing teams will require a member of your team to be able to clarify such questions. This cycle of knowledge benefits both your internal team communications and the quality of translations we deliver for you. For special translations such as medical translation an extra proofing stage can be applied.

Proofreading costs are included in our translation pricing so no additional charge is made for this. Proofreading is a key part of all document translation to ensure the correct interpretation has been applied in the translation process.

5. Desktop Publishing (DTP) and In-Context Review 
STAR provides desktop publishing services to its clients for all languages and in all file formats and operating systems, MAC, PC, Unix, etc.,

Reduced DTP Effort: A key benefit of working with STAR is that we can work with all major file formats. STAR Transit, our translation memory tool, is recognized as having some of the best file filters in the world today. This benefits you as we can extract text from virtually any file format for translation. STAR Transit separates the text content from the document layout. We can then translate the text and reintegrate it into the document for final DTP layout. This process greatly reduces the DTP effort required for your translation projects.

Once proofread, we output the final document to its print-ready form and it is reviewed for layout and structure. We take a sample of the text again and read it in published form to ensure it delivers the same high quality user view as the original. We deliver the files to the client for final review in the published form. Some clients opt to proof the final versions themselves internally to ensure that the translated documents that we provide read in the same style as requested.

Storage/retention of the translation with a view to future updating. All STAR projects are translated using the STAR Transit Translation Memory system. STAR Transit is our commercial translation memory system, recognized as one of the worlds leading translation memory system. The product has been some 15 years in development and includes file filters for all of the leading file formats.

STAR Transit includes automated quality checks for consistency, terminology usage and file formatting. All STAR translators use this system, thus delivering a consistent quality process.

All projects are automatically stored in Transit's translation memory system at no charge. The translation memory is confidential to you and remains your property at all times. This ensures that your linguistic assets are preserved and at your disposal for all future projects.

6. Final Handoff. 
STAR then delivers the final files to the client in the required format. We can do this by email, FTP or courier, depending on client's requirements. We ensure that we deliver to the client a) the final files and b) the sources relating to those files to enable the client to recreate them in the future.