Gearing up internationally

Gear systems are a universal commodity: they are an essential part of conveyors installed all over the world. They might be part of a heavy duty conveyor belt transporting coal at an open cast mine or key components in a production line at a packaging plant. One of the world’s leading manufacturer and supplier of gear systems is Radicon Transmission UK, which is part of Asia’s largest gear manufacturer Elecon Engineering.

Radicon, and its sister company Benzlers, have sales and manufacturing locations throughout Europe, Asia and North America, with headquarters in Yorkshire, in England. The gears the companies make can end up anywhere in the world. "It’s a legal requirement we have to supply an installation and maintenance manual with every product we ship in the language of the country that the product is going into," explains Simon Johnstone, Marketing Manager at Radicon Transmission UK.

Offering manuals in different languages is therefore a key element of Radicon’s customer service. "Our business success has been – and will always be – built upon exceeding our customers’ expectations. Our aim is to build long-lasting customer relationships by offering a reliable, efficient and quality service in every area we deal with our customers. Hence the need for high quality, accurate translations," says Simon.

Since 2009 those translations have been undertaken by McFelder Translations. In addition to the main European languages, McFelder has translated documentation into Russian, Arabic, Czech, Portuguese Brazilian and Polish. "The main challenge is the technical nature of the work. Having someone with a technical background to understand what the term refers to in the context of the individual engineering manual is important. That’s why we have found McFelder to be the best," says Simon.

"Accuracy is very good. We’ve just done nine catalogues in German and nine in French and our sales guys have only come back with some minor changes and in a lot of cases it’s just because that particular person prefers it said in a certain way. McFelder are very quick as well. If they say it is going to take three months to do all nine catalogues, come the end of three months, you’ll have got your nine catalogues."

"We know that delivering what we promise is important to our customers," agrees McFelder director, Fiona McCrae. "Our translation process is exacting not only in terms of technical accuracy but also project management, so, whether it’s translating text or a full desk top publishing translation project, we make sure it meets every spec all the way through."

Translations are also an important part of Radicon’s marketing activities and can in fact open the door to new markets. "We have recently opened up our first ever distributor in Egypt and, for the first time, we’ve translated material into Arabic. Since that was set up, we’ve had a £0.25 million order come in. The fact that we have brochures and collateral in Arabic means we can go out and sell."

Although many sales are still sealed on a person-to-person basis and printed materials are the norm, Simon admits that the future will be on-line and expects to have the Radicon website in more major European languages soon, opening the door to more sales opportunities.