1M-word project delivered in 8 languages within just 5 business days
Industry/Sector: Legal, Patents & Intellectual Property
One of the world’s Top 5 Language Service Providers (LSPs) engaged SMARTIDIOM for a legal multilingual project in a regulated industry. The assignment: deliver 1 million words of technical documentation in 8 languages within just 5 business days.
SMARTIDIOM was entrusted with the European Portuguese portion – a critical share of the content – thanks to our certified processes and proven scalability.
The challenge
The challenges were clear from the start: an extraordinary volume of content, an immovable 5-day deadline, and zero margin for error due to strict regulatory compliance.
The client mandated adherence to ISO 9001, ISO 17100, and ISO 18587 standards – ensuring quality management, qualified linguists, and expert post-editing of any machine translation.
Resource scalability was another hurdle: the project demanded assembling a large team of specialized Portuguese linguists on short notice.
SMARTIDIOM's strategy
1 - Rapid kick-off & requirement alignment:
Within hours of project confirmation, SMARTIDIOM held a kick off meeting with the LSP’s team to gather all requirements – style guides, terminology lists, regulatory instructions, and platform access. We clarified the project scope and quality expectations and set up a centralized communication channel for quick query resolution during the project.
2 - Specialized team assembly:
We immediately assembled a scalable team of European Portuguese linguists and quality assurance specialists with expertise in the subject matter. All team members were briefed on the project’s domain and compliance needs, and each signed the necessary confidentiality and compliance agreements given the sensitive, regulated content.
3 - Technology & workflow integration:
Our team synchronized with the client’s preferred tools and the linguists worked simultaneously on different sections, with real-time terminology sharing to maintain consistency. SMARTIDIOM’s project manager monitored progress around the clock, re-balancing assignments dynamically to keep every task on schedule.
4 - Quality control & regulatory compliance checks:
As each batch of translation was completed, senior translators and revisers performed MTPE (in line with ISO 18587) to catch any errors and ensure the text met both linguistic quality and the industry’s regulatory standards. We implemented automated QA checks using specialized tools.
5 - Final validation & on-time delivery:
Our QA specialists conducted a full audit of the translated Portuguese documentation. This included a run-through of the client’s third-party QA checklist to pre-empt any issues. We confirmed that all client instructions were followed and that the deliverables were format-ready. SMARTIDIOM delivered the complete European Portuguese translation on time via the client’s secure portal.
Challenges overcome
- Ultra-tight timeline: Our team members staggered work across extended hours and time zones, ensuring continuous progress.
- Scaling the linguist team quickly: Within a day, we onboarded +20 qualified Portuguese translators and editors. By leveraging our reputation and existing relationships, we secured the needed talent immediately – avoiding delays that a typical vendor search might have caused.
- Consistency with multiple contributors: We established a real time collaboration framework, i.e. a shared terminology bank and a style guide was accessible to all translators. A lead linguist was assigned to handle queries and distribute clarifications instantly and regular brief syncs ensured that any doubt was resolved uniformly.
- Regulatory and Quality Compliance: Our QAers cross-checked translations against regulatory references while doing their quality review. We also ran the translated text through a third-party QA tool, allowing that any potential issue was flagged and fixed before delivery.
KPIs achieved
- 100% on-time delivery to the client
- Less than 0.02% of the translated content requiring any revision
- Zero critical issues and no major non-compliance
- A sustained productivity of ~50,000 translated words per day
Conclusion
This project demonstrates SMARTIDIOM’s ability to be a reliable, low-risk partner for even the most demanding LSP programmes. Faced with an immense volume and an unforgiving deadline, we proved that speed does not have to come at the expense of quality. In the end, our collaboration enabled the client to uphold their promises to their end-client, showcasing how SMARTIDIOM adds value as a consultative, quality-driven extension of large LSP teams.
What this client says
“We knew this project would be a true test of our vendor’s capabilities – and SMARTIDIOM exceeded our expectations. They ramped up a qualified team for us almost overnight and integrated seamlessly with our workflow. Despite the crazy volume and deadline, their quality was outstanding: the European Portuguese delivery was on time and virtually error-free.”
Vendor Manager, Top 20 Global LSP