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The Challenge: Uncompromising Clarity in Defence Communications

NIMR, a leading manufacturer of wheeled military vehicles and a pivotal subsidiary within the UAE’s advanced technology and defence group, EDGE, operates in an environment where clarity is not merely beneficial—it is critical. The precision of technical documentation directly impacts the operational readiness, safety, and effectiveness of defence assets in demanding environments.

NIMR faced the challenge of ensuring that all its technical and support communications, from maintenance manuals to field service reports and customer interactions, adhered to an uncompromising standard of clarity and consistency. This was particularly complex given the diverse roles involved in creating and delivering this information, and the crucial requirement to translate documents accurately between English and Arabic for various customers and end-users:

• Customer Support Officers: Needing to convey precise solutions and guidance efficiently to end-users, often in both English and Arabic.
• Field Engineers & Technicians: Requiring unambiguous instructions for maintenance, troubleshooting, and on-site support of complex military vehicles, with the knowledge that these would be translated.
• Technical Writers & Documentation Experts (from various backgrounds): Tasked with authoring and managing a vast array of critical technical content, with a direct impact on the quality of subsequent translations.

Any ambiguity could lead to misinterpretations in critical operational contexts, potentially compromising safety, delaying field repairs, impacting training effectiveness, or introducing errors during the English-Arabic translation process. NIMR sought a solution that would embed a culture of precise communication directly within their operational teams, with a clear benefit to their multilingual documentation needs.

The Results: A New Standard for Operational Clarity and Multilingual Efficiency

By investing in on-site ASD-STE100 training with Shufrans TechDocs, NIMR achieved significant, measurable improvements in its technical and support communications:

• Enhanced Operational Clarity: A unified approach to language drastically minimised ambiguities in all forms of documentation, directly improving the understanding and execution of critical procedures by both internal teams and external customers.
• Improved Field Efficiency: Field Engineers could more effectively diagnose issues and follow maintenance protocols, reducing downtime and ensuring rapid response in operational scenarios.
• Streamlined Customer Support: Customer Support Officers provided clearer, more concise guidance, leading to reduced resolution times and enhanced customer satisfaction.
• Boosted Documentation Quality: Technical Writers and Documentation Experts consistently produced high-quality, compliant content, streamlining workflows and reducing rework.
• Optimised Translation Processes: With a consistent and unambiguous English source text, the translation of documents into Arabic became faster, more accurate, and more cost-effective, ensuring seamless communication with diverse customer bases.
• Accelerated Professional Growth: The hands-on training significantly upskilled personnel across critical roles, fostering a collective commitment to precision communication and supporting their long-term professional development within the defence sector.
• Strengthened Communication Chain: A common language standard facilitated seamless information exchange between engineering, documentation, field support, and translation teams, underpinning NIMR’s commitment to delivering superior defence solutions globally.

NIMR’s proactive investment in on-site STE training with Shufrans TechDocs has transformed its communication landscape, reinforcing its position as a leader in defence manufacturing through unparalleled clarity, operational excellence, and enhanced multilingual capabilities. This success story underscores the vital role of targeted communication training in ensuring readiness and reliability for critical industries operating on a global scale.

If your organisation faces similar challenges in achieving uncompromising clarity and operational readiness through precise communication, especially when translation between English and Arabic is a key requirement, discover how Shufrans TechDocs can help. Learn more about our ASD-STE100 training and consulting services:

🗓️ View our training calendar.

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We offer you more than just a training service

1. Are you a manager who constantly worries about the varying technical English proficiency levels of your staff?
2. If you are an engineer, are you having a difficult time explaining your concepts to your technical writing team?
3. If you work as a technical communicator, do you often struggle to convert complex ideas into brilliant content?

If you answered yes to any of the above, join us at the next certified Simplified Technical English workshop session in Shanghai, and be pleasantly surprised.

STE stands for Simplified Technical English. It offers native & non-native English speakers alike an efficient platform to improve your technical English language competency when writing for a global audience.

1. For technical writers: simplified wording and grammar will improve readability and safety compliance of your documentation and product respectively.
2. For engineers and programmers: Breeze through writing of test cases, technical documents, and business emails in a highly standardised and regulated manner. STE opens up effective communication channels, hence avoiding potential miscommunication issues at work while improving the overall professional impression that you portray.
3. For translators, translation PMs, and localisation engineers: With STE working for your team in the background, you can streamline your preparation of translation memory/terminology based on leaner documentation, lowered translation & localisation costs, and faster delivery.
4. For LSPs and technical writing services companies: Diversify your business portfolio with an in-depth knowledge of STE as an international controlled English language standard.

The Organisers

Shufrans Techdocs

Shufrans TechDocs is a full-service technical documentation provider and the global leader in ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English training and consultancy. Together with our partner network, we can help you implement a future-proof information management environment that lets you work more efficiently and accurately.

https://www.shufrans-techdocs.com/

TC互联

Talent of Content is a Shanghai-based technical communication platform that is designed especially for the technical writing community. Talent of Content (ToC) strives to provide technical communicators with a platform for their professional development, communication, and cooperation. Now, we extend our services to all content-related professionals.

Act fast and register now! We have limited seat availability.

15 (Sun) to 16 (Mon) July 2018

Shanghai • China

This event is a collaborative effort brought to you by the dedicated teams at Shufrans Techdocs × TC互联. The first ever co-certified STE training program in China.

Programme Highlights

1. Highly efficient: We will cover all 400 pages of the ASD-STE100 Specification in 2 days’ training for immediate implementation.
2. Practicality: cross-industry cases sharing by trainers with excellent pragmatic approach
3. Follow-up: 3-month post-training consulting period follows immediately after the training to ensure a seamless transition into STE writing at work
4. Experienced trainer: Ms Shumin Chen, Co-founder & Head of ASD-STE100 training & implementation of Shufrans TechDocs. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shuminchen/

Introductory offer 2999 RMB from 5999 RMB | Service Package includes:

1. 2-day classroom training
2. 90-day post-training support by Shufrans TechDocs
3. 90-day professional consulting by STE experts
4. Reduce your content development time and efforts
5. Significantly lowers post-processing (e.g. translation) cost
6. One-stop content quality solution
7. Overall quality improvement.

More case studies & industry samples：https://www.shufrans-techdocs.com/simplified-technical-english-case-study/

To learn more:

Introduction

Clear, unambiguous, and consistent technical documentation is paramount in the complex and safety-critical world of urban mobility. This case study highlights a successful engagement with Schindler Group, a global leader in elevators, escalators, and related services, focused on achieving their technical communication through comprehensive Simplified Technical English (STE) implementation.

Client Background

Schindler Group, headquartered in Ebikon, Switzerland, is renowned for its innovative and sustainable mobility solutions. With a vast international presence and a diverse workforce, ensuring that technical manuals, maintenance procedures, and product documentation are universally understood is a strategic imperative, particularly for safety and operational efficiency.

The Challenge

Prior to the engagement, Schindler, like many multinational corporations, faced the inherent challenges of technical documentation:

• Ambiguity: Standard English, with its rich vocabulary and complex grammatical structures, can lead to misinterpretations, especially among non-native English speakers.
• Inconsistency: Multiple authors and external vendors, potentially across different regions, could result in varied writing styles and terminology, hindering clarity and increasing translation costs.
• Translation Efficiency: Complex source texts often led to higher translation costs and potential errors in localised versions, impacting global operations.
• Safety Criticality: In the elevator and escalator industry, any misunderstanding in technical instructions can have severe safety implications.

Schindler recognised the need for a standardised approach to technical English to mitigate these risks and improve the overall quality and efficiency of their documentation.

Phase 2: Document Rewriting and Refinement Following the initial training, a direct engagement commenced with key personnel to apply STE principles to existing documentation. This involved close collaboration with:

• Principal Corporate Technical Author: To ensure the practical application of STE rules and to establish internal champions for the standard.
• Head of Corporate Technical Documentation: To oversee the strategic implementation and integration of STE into Schindler’s documentation workflows.

This hands-on rewriting process ensured that the theoretical knowledge gained during training was immediately put into practice, demonstrating tangible improvements in clarity and consistency.

Phase 3: Global Expansion of Training Recognising the success and the need for global consistency, the training was extended to other critical regions. A dedicated online training session was conducted for:

• Corporate Technical Documentation colleagues in Shanghai, China: This expanded the reach of STE adoption, ensuring that documentation produced in a key international hub also conformed to the new global standard.

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Key Stakeholders and Organisational Impact

The success of this initiative was a testament to the collaborative effort across various departments and external partners, demonstrating how STE benefits different parts of the organisation:

• Leadership and Management: Gained strategic alignment and understanding of STE’s business value in achieving safety, efficiency, and global reach.
• Engineering and Product Development Teams (including Subject Matter Experts): Benefited from improved clarity in technical specifications, design documents, and maintenance requirements, ensuring precise input and reduced ambiguity from the source.
• Technical Documentation Teams (in-house and external partners): Acquired practical skills in applying STE rules, leading to more consistent, unambiguous, and efficient content creation for manuals, procedures, and other technical assets.
• Terminology and Language Specialists: Enhanced their ability to manage and control technical vocabulary, ensuring consistency across all documentation and facilitating improved translation quality.
• Translation Teams: Experienced streamlined translation processes due to the reduced ambiguity and increased consistency of STE-compliant source texts.

Results and Impact

The implementation of STE at Schindler Group yielded significant benefits:

• Achieved Clarity and Readability: Documents became easier to understand for a global audience, including non-native English speakers, reducing the risk of misinterpretation.
• Improved Consistency: A unified writing style and controlled vocabulary ensured consistency across all technical documentation, regardless of the author or origin.
• Increased Efficiency: Streamlined writing processes and clearer source texts led to more efficient documentation creation and review cycles.
• Reduced Translation Costs: The unambiguous nature of STE significantly lowered translation costs and improved the quality of translated materials.
• Strengthened Safety: By eliminating ambiguity in critical instructions, the overall safety of operations and maintenance procedures was achieved.

Testimonials

This impact was echoed by participants:

Roland Kiser, Terminology Coordinator at Schindler, noted: “This course shares a good overview of structure, purpose, history, and contextual information about STE. The limited vocabulary and restricted list of words, short sentence constructions, active voice, and imperative verb usage are valuable takeaways messages to act upon in Simplified English. The examples used in this training are quite realistic and it is very likely that I will recommend this STE training to someone else.”

Cécile Roos, Corporate Translation Manager, added: “Entertaining, short, and clear presentation of the STE specification and rule sets. Overall, a good mix of rules, examples, and exercises. The course was very much on point and encouraged me to write in a more structured way. This will help the readers to properly understand my message even in business writing. Shumin had a very calm way of leading all of us through the training. Her style of teaching is rather empathetic and she keeps the group working effectively with timely breaks in between. Thanks Shumin for an enjoyable course with the perfect score of 10/10 in terms of trainer evaluation.”

Marco Valtangoli, Senior Corporate Technical Author at Schindler, also provided valuable feedback: “A very important and highlighted point during the introduction is that STE is an English language specification that is not only applicable for companies in the aerospace & defence industry. Rule 5.2 where you only have one instruction per sentence is important to us. Not being able to use the verb “CHECK’ that is only used as an approved STE noun poses a challenge to me all the time. I really appreciate the STE writing rules that give us the possibility to improve the consistency of our documents. The workshop exercises were of high interest value and drive home the point that it is important to learn by doing. Although a time-consuming process, the writing workshop impressed on me that the need to prioritise the analysis of our internal documents. Shumin is a competent trainer who does not only focus on explaining and enforcing the “writing rules”, but is always available to understand and empathise with the training needs of the class.”

Conclusion

The comprehensive STE training and document rewriting initiative with Schindler Group stands as a strong example of how strategic investment in technical communication can drive operational excellence, improve safety, and foster global consistency within a leading industrial enterprise. By empowering their diverse teams with the tools and knowledge of Simplified Technical English, Schindler reinforced its commitment to delivering clear, reliable, and high-quality documentation worldwide.

If your organisation faces similar challenges in achieving uncompromising clarity and operational readiness through precise communication, discover how Shufrans TechDocs can help. Learn more about our ASD-STE100 training and consulting services:

🗓️ View our training calendar.

Not just a standard for maintenance documentation only

On 25 January 2017, Issue 7 of the ASD-STE100 was renamed ‘International specification for the preparation of maintenance technical documentation in a controlled language’. Now, given the success and adaptability of Simplified Technical English (STE) across industries, this long overdue name change is a very much welcomed move. Indeed, STE writing principles are very valid for all technical documentation purposes.

On 20 and 21 February 2017 Shufrans TechDocs & FOXIZ became the first companies worldwide to jointly offer a certified ASD-STE100 training workshop using Issue 7.

Naturally, a cake celebration was called for after writers worked so very hard on their STE rewriting assignments. 2017 coincides with my 11th year of using the ASD-STE100 Specification, although I had hoped for an earlier release date in 2016 to mark a decade of my technical writing career 😉

Followed this course last February and truly learned a lot. Shumin is very experienced and really knows what she is talking / teaching about. Recommended for all manual writers!

– Hans Harlé, Entecst Technical Communication

20% fewer rules in Issue 7!

Here are some of my observations: Seemingly overlapping writing rules were either removed or combined with others.  The results?  A 20% decrease in the number of writing rules from 65 to 53. Before you get the wrong idea, the message of STE did not change, it only crystallised. What transpired during those four years since the older issue in 2013 was a major overhaul where rules were succinctly rephrased and cleverly reorganised.

Every rule now includes a comprehensive description and explanation. Sentence examples were revised to facilitate a more progressive and concise understanding, coupled with an accurate use of this technical English writing standard.

A reduced learning curve

As a controlled language, STE writing rules and its core vocabulary (or general dictionary) of words work hand in hand to facilitate your authoring process. While the rules regulate the words and which parts of speech you can use, the dictionary provides you with a generous resource of technical words. This core vocabulary of around 930 approved words lets you write just about everything that you need for technical documentation, even for procedural information in general. However, this isn’t quite the end of my story yet.

Every dictionary entry is marked either as an approved or non-approved term. In the case of a non-approved word, one or more possible synonyms are provided to help the writer transition from Standard English to Simplified English. Approved synonyms and associated sentence examples will provide him with the ideas that will be difficult to think of all by himself. The revised layout and formatting in Issue 7 also makes it a lot easier to locate keywords and identify relevant examples speedily.

In recent versions of the ASD-STE100 specification issues 5, 6, and 7, we find that between 95 to 99% of the words in the STE general dictionary can be easily adapted even for technology companies, like the technical aspects of data protection solutions. And the concept of the STE specification is such that you can very easily adapt the specification to suit and cover your specific needs. It mainly entails additions to the dictionary which are customarily made, even for aerospace customers.

Enslaved to only 1,000 words or less? No way!

STE encompasses three main categories of words that technical writers can avail themselves of:

1. Approved words from the general dictionary
2. Technical names
3. Technical verbs.

Technical names and verbs are word categories where organisations and writers can enjoy a considerable degree of autonomy using STE guidelines for customer-specific terms, most of them are known as technical names. Technical names are mainly nouns that you need in order to write meaningful content about your specific product or services. They are not included in the dictionary because terminology differs from one industry to the other. To manage this unpredictability, STE provides lists of 19 categories for nouns (Rule 1.5 of Issue 7), and four categories for verbs (Rule 1.12 of Issue 7). I am happy to report that the STE Maintenance Group has since reviewed and enriched those lists in Issue 7. You will not do away with most of your product-specific terminology. However, STE principles will help you regulate and filter it. I strongly encourage technical communicator in any field to hold onto this specification as a highly valuable resource!