Quality Commitment
Quality, Quantitatively Assessed
You hear "quality" this and "quality" that. What is "quality," anyway?
Our basic approach to quality is perhaps best illustrated below. It comprises the basic building blocks such as Quality Assurance, Quality Control, and Quality Verification - all of which are bound together by the concept of "Continuous Improvement"? It embraces everything we do to maintain quality excellence, including our employee training program, the way we structure our IT system for minimum project management error rates, the 6-Sigma tools and principles that we employ in our daily work, as well as the way we measure key work activities, so we know where we must improve.
At Apex, it all begins with capable translators. We insist on verifying each of our linguists' professional experience and examining a test translation in their respective subject areas to look for native speaking fluency, accuracy, content expertise, and attention to detail. Our Chief linguist, who is proficient in multiple languages, monitors ongoing performance, too.
For style and terminology consistency, Apex maintains customer-specific glossaries and other reference tools. A qualified linguist, who is not the translator, proofreads the translation. Random sample checks keep everyone sharp.
But it's not just measuring how many words we've translated accurately. Translation quality is a combination of factors that reflect accuracy, results, and professionalism.
Unlike most translation companies, we apply quantifiable assessments to ensure we provide high-quality translation services.
Apex applies the SAE Recommended Practice J2450 (Translation Quality Metric) which is a consistent and industry-wide recognized method for measuring translation quality. This SAE practice allows an accurate assessment of an Overall Document Weighted Score (ODWS) which is a quantitative assessment of a translation’s overall quality.
We guarantee that none of our translations provided to our clients will ever exceed an ODWS value of 0.02. Indeed, about 95% of our translations contain zero errors or very few minor ones.
Then, twice yearly, we perform a survey asking our clients to rate our services in terms of cost, translation quality, on-time delivery, and quality of interaction.
Our last survey revealed that in terms of our prices, Apex is placed in the 36th percentile of the 22 competitors that were surveyed, and that 95.0 percent of our clients believe the Apex translation quality is above average. The same survey also indicates that 94.5 percent of our clients believe our service performance, such as on-time delivery and client-supplier interaction, is above average.
Solid answers. Peace of mind.
See for yourself. Check out our Quality Manual for more detailed information regarding our quality procedures, or the results of our most recent quality survey that reflects what our clients think about our quality. It shows how Apex maintains its sterling reputation for high quality and competitive pricing.
Need more convincing? For projects over 3,000 words, request a FREE sample translation to assess our work. You won’t find a more stringent process.
