Lifeline delivers 11-language website in record time

Preston-based Lifeline Language Services delivered a complicated 11-language website in record time for British Polythene Industries’ Silotite silage stretchfilm product.

Following an extensive rebranding exercise BPI wanted to introduce the new website to the agricultural community in time for the 2015 silage season. In just two months, the team at Lifeline translated, proof-read and delivered the entire website so that it was finalised in time to reach farmers and agricultural contractors worldwide in the run-up to the silage making period.

With head offices in Greenock, BPI PLC is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of polythene products, turning over around £500m and supplying over 270,000 tonnes each year for a wide variety of applications. BPI’s recycling plants reprocess over 65,000 tonnes of UK waste from industrial, commercial, agricultural and domestic sources, making the company Europe’s largest polythene recycler.

Lifeline has been working with BPI since 2005, delivering over 180 projects and handling 16 languages in end-to-end services bringing together translation, multilingual typesetting and voiceover production. The latest requirement was to translate the new website for BPI’s Silotite, a leading bale-wrapping product which annually wraps over 40 million bales in 50 countries.

Lifeline’s production director, Mark Everson, himself a Chartered Engineer, said: “Lifeline has been privileged to assist BPI with their international success for several years, and we’re delighted to be working with them on this latest project.

“The challenge in BPI, as with all such technical projects, is ensuring the translators and reviewers really understand the technology. It’s pretty industry-specific content, so we always take the time to mark-up the source text with advice and references before it goes to translation.

"Prepping text this way really helps reinforce the translators’ understanding and confidence, so they can focus on a good, flowing translation instead of being repeatedly interrupted having to check stuff. This also minimises queries at the proofreading and review stage, and of course ensures a higher standard of translation overall. We have a great panel of well-qualified and experienced technical translators so we trust them absolutely to know their subject and put in the proper research.

“Our translation memory tools help a lot as well; ensuring translators keep consistency with previous work and also usually allowing us to save BPI money because we can leverage similar content of theirs that we've handled before. BPI aren't the only ones who are great recyclers!” Lifeline’s translated BPI material can be found at trade and agricultural shows worldwide, with languages including Russian, Arabic and Japanese as well as all European languages.