Vacon Plc
Future of multilingual content management
in product documentation
Pasi Savola,
Documentation Manager
Vacon in a nutshell
• Established 1993 in Vaasa, by a group of 13 persons
• Listed in Helsinki Stock Exchange in December 2000
• In 2012, the turnover was 388 MEUR
• About 1600 persons working for Vacon globally
• Production and R&D facilities in China, India, Italy and
the USA. Sales offices in 29 countries
• Vacon concentrates on one product only, AC drives for
a large variety of industrial applications
• AC drives are used for controlling the speed of electric
motors, with different software for different applications,
such as pumps, lifts, conveyors, paper machines, etc.
-> Save energy, enhance processes
-> Renewable energy sources
Vacon PPT
2
Product documentation and content
management, current situation
• Our products have installation and software manuals
• The manuals are localized in about 25 different languages
• Content is created and updated with Adobe Framemaker, some
manuals still in MS Word format
Challenges:
-> Vast amount of content
-> The information is not structured, same content in many books
-> Writing, update and localization processes challenging to manage,
risk of errors
-> Vacon has specialized vocabulary
-> Content is updated twice a year
Vacon PPT
3
Product documentation and content
management, next steps
The production and localization of user and
service documentation have been outsourced to
two different partners
-> Main development steps being taken: XML, STE,
specialized technical glossary in all Vacon Group
languages
Vacon PPT
4
XML
All product documentation content is being
recreated in DITA-based modular environment
-> About 40-50% of Vacon manuals’ content can be
reused in several different documents
-> Texts are being made more generic -> more reusable
-> Publishing made automatic
+ Uniform look and feel
-> Modules are updated in one location only
+ Improved accuracy and time-to-market
+ Less writing resources needed
+ Savings in localization process
Vacon PPT
5
STE
All product documentation content is being
recreated according to Simplified Technical English
standard
-> General STE vocabulary restricted to about 1000 words
-> Vacon-specific vocabulary imported to the system as a separate
module
-> Only STE-approved terms allowed in authoring, short sentences
and bulleted lists preferred
+ Clear and understandable user manuals
+ Improved accuracy and time-to-market
+ Less writing resources needed
+ Savings in localization process
Goal: Clear and uniform environment of Vacon
technical product information!
Vacon PPT
6
Vacon glossary in all languages
Along with XML and STE, a special glossary of
challenging Vacon terminology is being created
-> Consists of about 800 terms at the moment
-> Includes special terms considered especially challenging in
translations
-> The glossary is being localized to all Vacon Group languages
+ Minimizing errors in language versions
+ Reducing quality issues
+ Savings in localization processes with developed
translation memories
Goal: Clear and uniform environment of Vacon
technical product information in all languages!
Vacon PPT
7
Points to be considered in content
creation
• Whether inhouse, or outsourced, always use professionals
• Train the writers in the area of the business
• Consider carefully, which technology to use in content
creation
-> MS Word is OK, but in a certain stage, the need of
special tools increases.
-> When the amount of data and translations increase,
have a business case made for implementing a
Content Management System. A big task but brings
benefits in the future
• Less is more!
-> Reduce the amount of content where possible
• Less is more!
-> Do not repeat yourself!
Vacon PPT
8
Points to be considered in localizing
your content
• Whether inhouse, or outsourced, always use professionals,
invest in quality partnerships
• Commit your international subsidiaries/sales offices to
validating the translations
-> Quality is good and local cultural elements also
considered
• Create a precise language strategy
• Keep the management informed about cost structure
• Develop the partnerships continuously, challenge them!
• If you have special terminology, make a glossary and have
it translated
• Less is more!
-> If you have a lot of content and language versions,
every reduction in content pays off
Vacon PPT
9
Vacon PPT
10