How A Global Life Sciences Company Deployed A Localized E-Learning Program To More Than 25,000 Employees

NEW YORK, NY, February 05, 2011 (Press-News.org) Profile

A global medical device manufacturer ("the Client") created a series of web-based modules for an employee training program on Good Documentation Practice requirements. In order to reach all of its international employees and guarantee consistency of training across all its sites, the Client needed to localize the training modules into 11 languages. The languages requested included Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (European), Spanish (European) and Turkish.

Challenge
The training modules were originally created in Adobe Flash with ActionScriptTM, JavaScriptTM, HTML and XML components. The modules consisted of 422 files, 96 noneditable graphics and more than 30,000 words, all of which contained source content that required localization.

The training modules made extensive use of screenshots of specific paper forms that employees were required to fully complete on a daily basis as part of their job. The screenshots contained text, as well as examples of handwriting, signatures and other various handwritten symbols, all of which had to be localized and reproduced in each requested language.

Merrill Brink Solution
Merrill Brink's Core Team is comprised of in-house experts from each area within a proposed project. A typical Core Team is made up of language leads, engineers, desktop publishing specialists and quality control experts, as well as project management and subject matter experts. During this phase of the project, all of the necessary elements involved in each stage were identified and a corresponding detailed timeline with specific project goals was created.

This project required close teamwork at every stage due to the complexity of the files. Merrill Brink personnel instituted a process that worked seamlessly from the translation, formatting and engineering perspective.

Merrill Brink's scoping phase and queries prompted the Client to search for and provide the full version of the original content copy platform used for the English training modules. This allowed the translation process to begin while the assessment of the training modules from an engineering point of view was completed simultaneously. Merrill Brink engineers reviewed all files to determine if any modifications needed to be made, such as locking non-translatable content to avoid potential functionality problems with the files at a later stage. This saved valuable time—and costs—in the overall project.

Results
As a result of Merrill Brink's upfront, extensive scoping and collaborative team approach on this project, it was completed with the highest level of quality and also met the Client's aggressive deadline.

All project deliverables were subject to Merrill Brink's intensive Quality Assurance process in order to ensure that no issues were introduced during the localization process and that the functionality of the source files was preserved entirely in the target files.

Projects with a similar scope normally would take 10 weeks, compared to the eight weeks that Merrill Brink's process efficiencies provided in this case. These efficiencies saved the Client 20 percent in both time and associated costs.

Merrill Brink International's extensive expertise in e-learning localization allowed timely management of all the issues and queries that inevitably surfaced in a project of this size.

About Merrill Brink International
Merrill Brink International (www.merrillbrink.com) is a leading provider of complete translation and language solutions for global companies and law firms, with special expertise in serving the legal, financial, life sciences, software, heavy machinery and corporate markets. A proven leader with more than 30 years of experience, Merrill Brink offers a wide range of language solutions including translation, localization, desktop publishing and globalization services.

Merrill Brink is recognized in the industry for its commitment to quality and its pioneering approach of leveraging technology to reduce costs, eliminate redundant processes and accelerate translation life cycles. Merrill Brink is certified to ISO 9001:2008; ISO 27001:2005 and ISO 13485:2003, and registered to EN 15038:2006 and ISO 14971:2007. Together, these standards provide assurance that the most stringent process and quality standards for translation are followed.