TextPartner’s Route to ISO Certification

It was yet another sleepless night in the late 90s when I found myself – once again – burning the midnight oil. The morning delivery was supposed to be the project finale – the moment when I would usually write how superb I felt about the completed work in a delivery email. But that morning, I was too tired to even think about it. I felt that my work was too slow and old fashioned, like a steam train chugging sluggishly into the station. I was convinced it was time to change the old school approach to benefit both the content and its user. There was no doubt my email attachments should include something other than sleepless nights and self-congratulations. And I thought I knew just how to do it!

The challenge was to implement a wide spectrum of changes: to ensure greater reliability across various domains, better flexibility in adapting to deadlines, continuous availability during holidays, support of multiple tools, transparency of resources and the capability to develop our own IT solutions.

That night, I decided to revolutionise my vision by focusing on building a production-focused team to the best advantage of our LSP clients. And that’s how TextPartner was born back in 1997. In a way, it was re-born in April 2020.

The TextPartner team consists of thirteen in-house linguists, three project managers, three revisers, a dtp operator, a coder and myself – the managing partner. For the past 23 years, it has remained true to our original goals. As a team, we developed a TMS whose features let us connect to the systems of our clients, manage and share knowledge, and also limit any monotonous PMing to an absolute minimum. We managed to reduce nonconformities as well as customer complaints to a fraction of a fraction of a percent.

And it was high time for us to confirm our professional standards through ISO 17100 and ISO 18587 certifications – the road leading there was one of the best experiences in our history!

The selection of a certification service was not straightforward, and the responsibility to make the best decision was all on me. There was one thing, however, we all agreed on as a team: we wanted the certification to be done the right way, and not necessarily the easy way! As a prerequisite, we wanted our TMS to become the backbone supporting as many requirements of those standards as possible! Additionally, we wanted each member of the team to understand the “why” behind implementations and any inconvenient ideas. The ultimate goal of the undertaking was to create an environment which would rely on transparency, ergonomics, high automation of checks, and which would provide a sense of prestige and professional accomplishment for its users. To meet this goal, I started looking for a service which could offer exceptional qualities. Firstly, an understanding of the language industry and the challenges faced by modern translation teams. Secondly, the ability to resonate with my team members and, thirdly, an aura of prestige that would be a reason for pride within the entire team.

Having selected ATC Certification Service and completed ISO 17100 and ISO 18587 certification, we came to the conclusion that we could not have made a better decision!

The whole team, myself inclusive, felt tired, happy and shared a deep sense of accomplishment. Preparations for the audit are very well phased, which was clearly laid out in the audit plan. The time between Stage 1 and Stage 2 was exactly what our team needed to get organised to present our “hands-on” solutions. The auditor’s flexibility in accommodating the availability of my staff was outstanding! Things like a 15-minute lunch break really helped us run a smooth, routine day with projects alongside the audit – I would normally have expected some disruption, but that was absolutely not the case! The auditor’s investigation was thorough, intelligent and accurate, but at the same time, she was helpful and curious about everything we were willing to share. The auditor challenged us with many questions as well as requests to present our solutions. That made us feel like we were really taking a tough but objective exam. It was also surprising for me to see that the auditor frequently noticed things on our shared screens more accurately than our team did, even though many of the strings were available only in Polish! The level of respect, kind support as well as appreciation which the auditor gave my team during the audit was outstanding! We all felt our conversation with the auditor helped us demonstrate the best of our professional knowledge and accurately present our skills.

We definitely enjoyed five-star service during ATC Certification – thank you very much for giving us this opportunity! I think it offers a lot of added value to companies like TextPartner and deserves recognition! Admitted among ATC associate members in May 2020, the TextPartner team feels proud to have become part of the ATC community and would like to re-introduce itself to the UK language professionals with a sincere “We are delighted to be on board!”

Marek Gawrysiak

Managing Partner at TextPartner

ECQA-Certified Terminology Manager

Programme Officer at Eulogia

About TextPartner

TextPartner is a regional language vendor based in Poland. The company was founded in 1997 to satisfy the specific demands of international agencies with respect to their Polish language assignments. Since then, it has unceasingly supported its clients with linguistic, DTP and task automation services. To carry out this mission, TextPartner employs expert linguists who share their passions for life and for languages. They work in teams covering as many as seventeen areas of expertise.

TextPartner is a member of Eulogia and ATC, as well as a founding member of POLOT and is proud to support Translators without Borders. It is certified by the ATC Certification Service for ISO 17100 and 18587.