Total quality management plan in non-profit translation service providers in the United Arab Emirates : identifying critical success factors for improvement
The notion of quality has become an important topic in the translation domain, especially as most translation projects are no longer just the outcome of the work of a single expert translator, but rather a corporate activity, consistent with the norms of the structural environment and bureaucratic workflows of the organisation that is responsible for the work. Managing quality across this value-chain is therefore one of the most challenging areas in 21st century translation. In such a complex process, the notion of Total Quality Management (TQM), originally a quality management tool in mass production, has started to be implemented effectively in many diverse sectors, such as medicine and education (Hansson, 2003); and translation project organisations have themselves become interested in applying TQM in their own quality assurance processes, especially as their activities also include digital translation mechanisms (DGT, 2009; Mitterlehner, 2012; BSI ISO 17100, 2015). The starting point of this research was to understand the existing quality management mechanisms and processes across English to Arabic translation companies and how they could be improved in a corporate context. Kalima, a translation project
Alhashmi, Mariam Mohamed Abubaker Yahya
Total quality management plan in non-profit translation service providers in the United Arab Emirates : identifying critical success factors for improvement. The notion of quality has become an important topic in the translation domain, especially as most translation projects are no longer just the outcome of the work of a single expert translator, but rather a corporate activity, consistent with the norms of the structural environment and bureaucratic workflows of the organisation that is responsible for the work. Managing quality across this value-chain is therefore one of the most challenging areas in 21st century translation. In such a complex process, the notion of Total Quality Management (TQM), originally a quality management tool in mass production, has started to be implemented effectively in many diverse sectors, such as medicine and education (Hansson, 2003); and translation project organisations have themselves become interested in applying TQM in their own quality assurance processes, especially as their activities also include digital translation mechanisms (DGT, 2009; Mitterlehner, 2012; BSI ISO 17100, 2015). The starting point of this research was to understand the existing quality management mechanisms and processes across English to Arabic translation companies and how they could be improved in a corporate context. Kalima, a translation project
total quality management plan non profit translation service provider united_arab_emirates identify critical success factor improvement notion quality become_important topic translation domain especially translation_project longer outcome work single expert translator rather corporate activity consistent norm structural environment bureaucratic organisation responsible work managing quality across value chain therefore challenge area translation complex_process notion total quality management originally quality management tool mass_production start implement effectively many_diverse sector medicine education translation_project become_interested apply quality assurance process especially activity also_include digital translation mechanism iso start_point exist quality management mechanism process across english_arabic translation company could improve corporate context translation_project