Hey folks,

We have a foreign language Standard, part of the ARIB standards, that will be used as reference material in a new product design.

The document in question has no official english translation and our engineers are not fluent in japanese. We have an "unofficial" translation, unofficial in that it hasn't been reviewed by ARIB and verified as being correct, of the document but if we use this then it is certainly a non conformance and if any of it is incorrect then our product is likely to be worthless.

The document is unlikely to be incorrect as we have used a company for the translation that specialises in technical translation that we have prior experience with.

From the QMS point of how can we add a document with no official translation to our system?

Anyone got any experience/views on this?

Hey folks,

We have a foreign language Standard, part of the ARIB standards, that will be used as reference material in a new product design.

The document in question has no official english translation and our engineers are not fluent in japanese. We have an "unofficial" translation, unofficial in that it hasn't been reviewed by ARIB and verified as being correct, of the document but if we use this then it is certainly a non conformance and if any of it is incorrect then our product is likely to be worthless.

The document is unlikely to be incorrect as we have used a company for the translation that specialises in technical translation that we have prior experience with.

From the QMS point of how can we add a document with no official translation to our system?

Hi Chergh,

Although I'm not familiar with ARIB and foreign language standards, it seems that the company you used for the translation should be able to provide some level of assurance that their translation is correct to the best of their knowledge and ability.

Does anyone else have any insight they might be willing to share?

Hi Chergh,

Although I'm not familiar with ARIB and foreign language standards, it seems that the company you used for the translation should be able to provide some level of assurance that their translation is correct to the best of their knowledge and ability.

Does anyone else have any insight they might be willing to share?

Here's my :2cents:

If this translation company could provide you with a listing of credentials and client references, that may be acceptable.

We have a foreign language Standard, part of the ARIB standards, that will be used as reference material in a new product design.

What do you mean by "reference material in a new...design"? Is this a product being made to customer specifications, or is it your own design? If the former is true, you can have the customer review your translated document. If they say it's OK (in writing), you're good to go. If the latter is true, you can establish the translation as the "official" document, and refer to it as being translated from the original ARIB document. The burden of showing the translation to be unfaithful vis-a-vis the original would be on whomever questioned it, in that case.

Thanks for the replys they are appreciated.

The product is our own design, though our intended customers will expect it to be compliant with all the relevant standards but we're making it for the market place not a specific customer.

The issue I'm having with this is that our marketing and engineering requirement specifications will state this product shall be compliant with ARIB-STD-B40.

As an auditor I would expect to see an official copy of the standard, as the standard is directly referenced in the requirements spec. In the situation I have described I suppose I am concerned about meeting the requirement of 7.3.2.a.

So even though we are referencing the standard directly in our MRS and ERS can we still establish the translation as the official document even though it hasn't been reviewed by ARIB as being correct?

Language translation issue are an ever increasing concern with the global enconmy such as it is. Unfortunatly litigation is there also.
My view for what it is worth is that when ever you get a document that you are going to comply with and certify to ( as opposed to using for referance and background) that you always translate it to the language of the system producing the object and get you customer to sign off on the translation.
In your document control system the translation becomes the child to the the original document.
If you deal with european sources the translation issue is not bad but if you have asian sources it can get very intresting to see what happens in translation. To see what I mean have a document translated to maderian by some one and then take the manderian translation and have a differnat person translate it back. Compare it to your original and see what was lost in translation.
:2cents: