Quality Assurance

EN 15038:2006 European Quality Standard for Translation Services

Alphatrad North America operates in accordance with the European Quality Standard EN 15038:2006 for Translation Service Providers.

The EN15038 standard ensures the consistent quality of the service. It requires regular audits by the certification body, and if any discrepancy is found, the certification shall be revoked.

Many European Translation companies have long felt the need for a reliable method of demonstrating the quality of the services they provide to their customers. Many sought ISO 9001 certification as a demonstration of their commitment to quality management systems. However, as the ISO 9001 standard does not address the sort of translation-specific processes which many translators consider important in determining quality outcomes, this standard did not become widely accepted as a "guarantee of quality" in the industry. In 2006, a quality standard, specifically written for the translation industry, EN 15038, was published by CEN, the European Committee for Standardization.

Broadly speaking, the standard's most outstanding features are firstly, that it defines the translation process where quality is guaranteed not by the translation which is just one phase in the process, but by the fact of the translation being reviewed by a person other than the translator and secondly, it specifies the professional competences of each of the participants in the translation process, mainly translators, reviewers, revisers and proofreaders.