We are committed to quality
KERN Group ensures high-quality translation services throughout the entire translation process by adhering to clearly defined processes. The quality management requirements are defined in ISO 17100 and DIN EN ISO 9001. KERN Group is certified in accordance with these international standards and meets the individual requirements for all individual translation processes.
- Quality and project management
- Contractual framework conditions
- Human and technical resources
- Working processes
- Additional services
Quality and project management
An active and intensive exchange of information takes place between KERN and its customers. This exchange begins before the translation itself:
- What type of text is it?
- What is the purpose of the translation?
- How urgently is the translation required?
- Are terminology lists or glossaries available?
- Is the use of a workflow tool such as portal4client™ suitable for the translation project?
Quality assurance
KERN adheres to a dual control quality assurance process, meaning that a native speaker translator renders your text in the target language and a second native speaker performs a final check of the text.
In addition, KERN evaluates every translation project together with its customers. At this stage, feedback by the ordering party is particularly important and helpful. This is the only way we can continue to improve our processes.
Proofreading
Upon request, further native speaker translators can proofread the translated text in terms of its content, grammar and orthography.
Formal checks
Upon request, we also check the files in both languages for potential formal mistakes and correct them where necessary with the help of specific quality assurance tools. KERN's tools comprise, for example, a tag verifier, spell checker, terminology verifier and a check for missing text. Similarly, date, time and number formats can be checked.
Other quality assurance tools
Other quality assurance tools that KERN uses (e.g. ErrorSpy) further enable terminology and consistency checks. This ensures that KERN’s translators render the previously specified, corporate terms in the terminology database correctly and also translate identical segments consistently. Using self-defined criteria, the translation is evaluated and a list of potential mistakes drawn up. We then send this list to the translators for review and correction.
Memberships
KERN's high quality standards are expressed through its memberships in the following industry associations:
- The Association for Technical Communication – tekom e.V.
- The American Translators Association – ATA
- The German Terminology Association (Deutscher Terminologie-Tag e.V. – DTT)
Download the certificates in PDF format
IT security
The employees and project managers of KERN Global Language Services are regularly trained with regards to topics relating IT security, e.g. on the security-compliant handling of customer-specific order data and documents. The processing of customer orders is always carried out in compliance with data protection laws and under consideration of applicable IT standards.
SCHEMA ST4-certified
- Many years of experience in processing data from SCHEMA (pre- and post-processing of files for translation)
- Insight into SCHEMA-internal editorial mechanisms
- Knowledge about the various export options for translations
- Provision of terminology to support authors working in SCHEMA
- Support and consulting regarding the integration of COTI I and COTI II with our portal4client™
Supplier management
The supplier management team at KERN will consult with the KERN customer advisors to find the right specialist translators, keeping your project’s requirements in mind at all times. Alongside translators in fixed employment, our translation team consists of carefully selected and contractually bound specialist translators, language experts, experts for intercultural communication, proofreaders and terminologists. You therefore have access to a comprehensive pool of languages and knowledge, meaning that a wide variety of language combinations and specialist areas can be covered.
We provide a pool of translators that is tailor-made to your business and your specialist area and by continuously utilising these translators and proofreaders, we can ensure that a variety of texts are more uniform in nature, both from a stylistic and terminological point of view. The KERN translator team has access to the relevant terminology databases, specialist dictionaries and glossaries. This allows them to correctly convey the message of the source document to the respective target audience. Depending on the language combination and specialist area, your customer advisor will select the relevant translator and proofreader from the pool that we have put together.
Linguistic and specialist skills
All KERN specialist translators have an academic degree, have additional qualifications in the area of linguistics and always translate into their native language. They generally speak various foreign languages, meaning that they have a large combined vocabulary.
Alongside a well-founded linguistic background, KERN specialist translators are also experts in certain specialist areas. KERN translators either have a specialist practical or academic education and have gathered in-depth knowledge of their subject area through years of working in the field or by having visited specialist events. Some of the fields they work in are chemistry, medicine, IT, automation, finance, engineering and law.
Experience and further training
Highly detailed translations place exceedingly high language demands on translators. Thanks to rapid progress in the areas of technology, science and economics, specialised terminology is being created and supplemented on an almost daily basis. KERN's translators not only possess relevant professional expertise, but also the willingness to do intensive research. Furthermore, they benefit from a continuous exchange of experience with one another.
A team of experienced translation engineers is always on hand to help our translators with the correct use of translation memory systems and the processing of complex file formats.
Linguistic and specialist skills
All KERN specialist translators have an academic degree, have additional qualifications in the area of linguistics and always translate into their native language. They generally speak various foreign languages, meaning that they have a large combined vocabulary.
Alongside a well-founded linguistic background, KERN specialist translators are also experts in certain specialist areas. KERN translators either have a specialist practical or academic education and have gathered in-depth knowledge of their subject area through years of working in the field or by having visited specialist events. Some of the fields they work in are chemistry, medicine, IT, automation, finance, engineering and law.
Experience and further training
Translating in a manner that pays attention to detail and that is appropriate to the job and to the audience requires the highest standard of translator. Thanks to rapid progress in the areas of technology, science and economics, specialised terminology is being created and supplemented on an almost daily basis. KERN's translators not only possess relevant professional expertise, but also the willingness to do intensive research. Furthermore, they benefit from a continuous exchange of experience with one another.
A team of experienced translation engineers is always on hand to help our translators with the correct use of translation memory systems and the processing of complex file formats.
The KERN translators
KERN's specialist translators translate from a working language exclusively into their native language within their particular area of expertise. Only native speaker translators are able to render all the aspects of the original text in their specialist areas with the necessary feel for the language when translating. Similarly, only native speakers edit and proofread the translations.
Selection of translators
Depending on their specialist areas, potential translators are requested to submit a test translation. After this test translation has been evaluated, it decided whether the translator is admitted into the translator pool Only then will we consider the translator for future assignments.
The translators are constantly evaluated during the course of the project. Comments concerning the specialist quality, reliability, availability, flexibility and technical skills are entered into the database by the KERN project managers and are then examined by the supplier management department. The comments guarantee that we constantly have a good idea of what the translators’ skills are like. This means that KERN Global Language Services can always provide the best translators for your project.
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