by Shufrans Techdocsin News & EventsComments Off on International Simplified Technical English Training Workshops in Q2 & Q3: Singapore, the Netherlands, Germany, Bulgaria, China, Malaysia
Write effective user manuals & instructions with Simplified Technical English
ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (STE) is a controlled language that is used to write technical manuals in such a way that they are more easily and accurately understood by an international audience, thus improving safety and efficiency.
Quick facts
Shufrans TechDocs and partners invite you to attend a 2-day certified ASD-STE100 workshop in the following locations*:
* Shufrans also offers English technical writing solutions tailored to meet your specific requirements. These courses are normally provided at the customer’s premises.
For more international training workshop locations and scheduled dates, visit:
ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (STE) is a controlled language that is used to write technical manuals in such a way that they can be more easily understood by an international audience. STE helps to make translations cheaper and more accurate. Often a formal requirement for aircraft and defence maintenance documentation, STE can easily be adapted to all technical industries and beyond. Ms. Shumin Chen will teach participants how to correctly and effectively use STE in practice. She will also address some of the mistakes commonly found in technical writing and the frequently incorrect use of common STE writing rules.
Practical overview of ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English
How STE helps both native & non-native speakers of English
Writing rules and how to apply them in practice
How to use the general vocabulary
How to deal with industry-specific terminology
How to use STE for various documentation types
How to implement STE with minimal disruption to on-going production and existing documentation
Hands-on STE editing and review
* Shufrans also offers customised ASD-STE100 training solutions tailored to meet your specific requirements. These courses are normally provided at the customer’s premises.
“The Simplified Technical English course content and requirements provided by Shumin Chen were an absolute good fit with the TCLoc Master’s program. A technical communicator has to know about the existing specifications for technical documentation. Furthermore, this course helps the students to acquire new skills in order to enhance the accuracy and clarity of contents.” TCLoc Master’s Student, University of Strasbourg.
Who should attend?
Compliance managers
CIO, COO, CTO
Customer support managers
Documentation managers
Editors
Engineering managers
Engineers and SMEs who create documentation
Graphics specialists
ILS managers
Maintenance managers
Operation managers
Product managers
Project managers
Quality managers
Software research engineers
Technical illustrators
Technical writers
Translation managers
Translators
What training outcomes to expect?
Our interactive training, exercises and workshop, will teach participants to standardise content to:
Author more efficiently
Communicate more effectively with a global audience
Improve operational safety
Reduce AOG / downtime
Facilitate modular writing and reuse
Facilitate teamwork
Facilitate translation
Maximise consistency
Optimise product lifecycle support
Reduce the cost of creating and maintaining technical publications
Trainer’s qualifications
Ms. Shumin Chen, principal trainer & consultant at Shufrans TechDocs received her professional on-the-job training in the field of STE under the tutelage of Dr Frans Wijma, a linguist and documentation expert. Together as an experienced global team, they provided their combined knowledge and dedication to benefit customers worldwide. To date, they have provided training and consultancy services to over 180 companies. Shufrans TechDocs is the only company with such vast experience in providing certified STE training.
Shumin has supported various companies with their STE and other documentation needs, based on standards where possible. Although STE was developed for the aerospace industry, more specifically for aircraft maintenance documentation, Shumin found that it made a lot of sense to apply the same principles to other industries and types of documents as well. Few -if any- changes to the specification are necessary to adapt STE to industries ranging from machinery to IT, automotive to medical equipment.
ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English (STE) is a controlled language that is used to write technical manuals in such a way that they can be more easily understood by an international audience. STE helps to make translations cheaper and more accurate. Often a formal requirement for aircraft and defence maintenance documentation, STE can easily be adapted to all technical industries and beyond. Ms. Shumin Chen will teach participants how to correctly and effectively use STE in practice. She will also address some of the mistakes commonly found in technical writing and the frequently incorrect use of common STE writing rules.
Course outline*
Participants have the flexibility of attending a 1, 2, or 3-day training session with us.
Day 1: Classroom Training
Practical overview of ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English
How STE helps both native & non-native speakers of English
Benefits of adopting the STE international writing standard
Writing rules and how to apply them in practice
How to use the general vocabulary.
Day 2: Application, Review, & Exercises
Approved and non-approved words discussion and the rationale behind.
How to deal with industry-specific terminology
How to use STE for various documentation types
How to implement STE with minimal disruption to on-going production and existing documentation
Day 3: Extended Writing Workshop
Practical workshop session for applying STE rules to your own documents
Review, edit, and discuss participants’ own documents to reinforce learning
Classroom presentation of own documents.
* Shufrans also offers customised ASD-STE100 training solutions tailored to meet your specific requirements. These courses are normally provided at the customer’s premises.
Learning how to optimally use a documentation standard like ASD-STE100 is a substantial boost to our technical writing team’s capabilities and significantly improved our compliance rating! Raja Sureshbabu, Global Head of Aerospace Vertical, Tata Consultancy Services.
Who should attend?
Compliance managers
CIO, COO, CTO
Customer support managers
Documentation managers
Editors
Engineering managers
Engineers and SMEs who create documentation
Graphics specialists
ILS managers
Maintenance managers
Operation managers
Product managers
Project managers
Quality managers
Software research engineers
Technical illustrators
Technical writers
Translation managers
Translators
What training outcomes to expect?
Our interactive training, exercises and workshop, will teach participants to standardise content to:
Author more efficiently
Communicate more effectively with a global audience
Improve operational safety
Reduce AOG / downtime
Facilitate modular writing and reuse
Facilitate teamwork
Facilitate translation
Maximise consistency
Optimise product lifecycle support
Reduce the cost of creating and maintaining technical publications
Trainer’s qualifications
Ms. Shumin Chen, principal trainer & consultant at Shufrans TechDocs received her professional on-the-job training in the field of STE under the tutelage of Dr Frans Wijma, a linguist and documentation expert. Together as an experienced global team, they provided their combined knowledge and dedication to benefit customers worldwide. To date, they have provided training and consultancy services to over 180 companies. Shufrans TechDocs is the only company with such vast experience in providing certified STE training.
Shumin has supported various companies with their STE and other documentation needs, based on standards where possible. Although STE was developed for the aerospace industry, more specifically for aircraft maintenance documentation, Shumin found that it made a lot of sense to apply the same principles to other industries and types of documents as well. Few -if any- changes to the specification are necessary to adapt STE to industries ranging from machinery to IT, automotive to medical equipment.
by Shumin Chenin BlogComments Off on Addressing human errors in the healthcare industry
It is important that operation and management information be understandable to the target audience. Sometimes, operation information is conveyed through a less-than-optimum selection of words. The manufacturer’s technical language can result in incomprehensible operation documentation.
Governance of Picture Archiving and Communications Systems: Data Security and Quality Management of Filmless Radiology, Carrison K.S. Tong, Eric T.T. Wong, Human Factors & Culture, 2009
English is the de facto language for almost all industries, including healthcare where communication is crucial to ensure operational efficiency and accuracy. Without good communication among healthcare professionals such as referring medical doctors, technologists, radiologists, clinicians, nurses, suppliers, maintenance and service engineers would imply that high quality standards become impossible to maintain.
Human errors can be expensive, lead to accidents, and risk product quality
More often than not, operation information is conveyed through a less-than-optimum selection of words. To cite a real-life example of a maintenance procedure where a certain step was ‘proscribed’ meaning prohibited, the technical personnel who read this instruction decided that the procedural step was ‘prescribed’ and hence recommended. Regrettably, he proceeded to carry out the prohibited action with dire consequences.
New manuals, job cards, operations and maintenance service bulletins are prime examples of documentation that must be proofread and beta-tested before being widely circulated. Proportionately, the labour costs involved in such documentation management processes can be immensely high.
Document complexity & volume
With the latest medical products and technology made available on the market, the increasing complexity and volume of medical data and healthcare information that must be created, recorded, integrated and managed cannot be avoided. Indeed, voluminous and complex writing that read very differently since they must have been supplied by various product manufacturers can negatively impact hospital’s operations when misread or misinterpreted. Volumes of user manuals from various sources with at times overlapping information also seem impossible to store and manage usefully.
A popular example in the aerospace industry is the well-known paper stack from aircraft manufacturers that supposedly exceeds the height of Mount Everest. Paper documentation support the work of aircraft operators. Airlines used to afford warehouses full of such paper stacks that document historical records of their aircraft maintenance. All of which proved too expensive to maintain later on.
Consequently, unmanageable volumes of text, document complexities, time-critical operations, as well as the growing proportion of healthcare workers whose first language is not English, all point to the need for a unifying English language standard that would allow the community to speak with one voice and convey critical information using fewer words.
Create manuals that speak with one voice
Safety begins with quality. Even the best product is only as good as its documentation and technical data, which allow the customer to use it safely and effectively.
Many incidents identified in the healthcare industry revealed poor technical understanding and communication due to missing user manuals, inadequately described operating instructions, and badly maintained equipment that add to the series of errors and accident occurrences.
Let’s take a close look at the following case study excerpt. Our customer is a manufacturer of mobile X-ray based imaging solutions. They created an operator manual and a service manual in Standard English that was subsequently edited in a controlled language known as Simplified Technical English (STE).
Standard English: inconsistent tone and excessive use of words
Control Panel Both the C-arm stand and the monitor cart have a control panel. The two control panels always show the same screen, enabling you to use them for system operation.Depending on the selected function, other controls (buttons, input boxes, displays, etc.) will appear on the control panel screen.The Vision Center control panel is designed as a touch screen. For system operation, just press the desired button or option directly on the touch screen.
STE: uniform tone of voice and standardised sentence structure
Control Panel The C-arm stand and the monitor cart each have a control panel screen. These screens show the same control panel. Each panel lets you operate the system. The panels have different controls for different functions.The control panel is a touch screen. To operate the system, touch the correct button or option.
At the time our customer was writing a range of user and maintenance manuals for their X-ray imaging equipment. Although the manuals were created and edited by more than 10 technical writers in a team, our customer wanted all manuals to read like they came from one single source. STE provided a cost-saving and easily implemented solution as evidenced by the rewritten STE sample text highlighted above.
Say it better with fewer words
The implementation of STE in the healthcare sector proved to be a great success. Using a smaller number of words with defined meanings and parts of speech, while adopting a simplified English language structure meant that user manuals now provide a highly consistent and unambiguous tone of voice with a 20% reduction in text volume. Above all, healthcare professionals depend on reliable documentation to operate medical devices and equipment safely and efficiently. STE therefore helps medical equipment manufacturers meet documentation compliance requirements, and can also increase the efficiency and productivity of their employees.
To summarise, an instruction found in a technical procedure must never become a case of interpretation. Work instructions communicated in technical manuals must be concise and let the user or maintenance personnel do their jobs properly, putting patient safety first and foremost.
