Regulatory Compliance Archives | Shufrans TechDocs Home // Regulatory Compliance Archives | Shufrans TechDocs

Product manuals and instructions for use carry dozens of items that exist simply because a regulation demands them. When a company ships products to more than ten markets, certification marks, warning texts, and disposal notices multiply into hundreds of combinations. If an organisation does not maintain strict governance over these items, a single rule change can take days just to scope out, and omissions usually surface only at customs or during market surveillance when the cost of fixing them has already escalated.

The Hidden Cost of Linguistic Ambiguity in Manuals

While regulatory compliance is often treated as a logistical checklist, the root cause of most compliance failures is linguistic. Standard English is full of nuance, synonyms, and subjective phrasing that invites misinterpretation. When technical authors write warning notices, installation steps, and safety directives without strict controls, they create hidden liabilities. Translators struggle to find exact equivalents, local authorities raise flags over vague compliance text, and end users face safety risks.

Why ASD-STE100 is a Proven Regulatory Control Mechanism

To solve this, companies need more than a content repository. They need strict linguistic governance. ASD-STE100 (Simplified Technical English) was specifically designed to eliminate ambiguity in complex technical documentation.

• Controlled vocabulary restricts words and enforces rigid grammatical rules so that every sentence has one unambiguous meaning.

• Reduced translation friction ensures that standardised source text translates cleanly into multiple languages, eliminating the costly iterations and review cycles that plague multi-market product manuals.

• Agile regulatory updates allow documentation teams to update precise terminology at the source without rewriting entire manuals when regulations change across global markets.

The Training Delivery Standard

High-compliance industries do not need software shortcuts or generic grammar checklists. They require rigorous, proven linguistic architecture. Shufrans TechDocs delivers the professional implementation and mastery standards required for organisations to embed ASD-STE100 permanently into their operations.

• Master the definitive specification through structured, industry-proven training tailored for engineering and technical documentation leaders.

• Eliminate costly ambiguities at the authoring source to protect your products against customs delays and compliance hazards.

• Streamline global localisation by turning product manuals into clean, audit-ready assets.

When technical documentation is engineered for absolute clarity, the entire compliance workflow changes. Instead of treating manuals as an afterthought or a last-minute scramble before product launch, engineering teams gain a predictable mechanism that scales effortlessly across international borders. Every warning label, safety instruction, and compliance notice becomes structurally immune to local misinterpretation.

Ultimately, investing in rigorous linguistic standardisation protects your bottom line by removing friction from every stage of the product lifecycle. By bridging the gap between complex regulatory mandates and precise authoring standards, your organisation ensures that compliance is no longer a recurring operational risk, but a seamless competitive advantage.

At Shufrans TechDocs, we help aerospace leaders secure total linguistic control over their operations. We move beyond passive software tools by providing expert, human-centric STE training and implementation programmes tailored directly to engineering teams. By standardising technical data at the source, we remove ambiguity to ensure your documentation is accurate for human operators, readable for automated systems, and fully compliant with global safety standards.

To learn how to eliminate ambiguity from your technical documentation and protect your operational timelines, connect with the team at Shufrans TechDocs.

In mission-critical environments—from deep-sea engineering to air traffic control—the ultimate liability is not hardware failure, but linguistic ambiguity. Before a pilot takes off, a surgeon begins a procedure, or an engineer completes critical maintenance, they rely on language that is objectively clear. Every pre-flight checklist, surgical guide, and maintenance manual is a repository of critical information, demanding absolute trust in the creator’s precision.

In an age where Artificial Intelligence (AI) can instantly generate content, we must ask ourselves: who or what is responsible for that trust?

AI can give you words at the speed of light, but it cannot guarantee the clarity, precision, and safety that its human creators can. The true value of a skilled team today is its ability to provide the guardrails of trust that AI needs to be a reliable partner. This is where a rigorous standard like Simplified Technical English (STE) becomes invaluable.

The Erosion of Trust in Ambiguity

Ambiguity is the enemy of trust. When a sentence has more than one meaning, it introduces doubt. When a piece of equipment is described inconsistently, it creates confusion. In environments where precision is critical, doubt and confusion lead to errors, delays, and compromised safety.

STE is a framework that systematically eliminates this ambiguity. It’s not just about a list of approved words or a set of rules; it’s about a disciplined mindset that ensures every sentence is a direct, unambiguous statement of fact. This discipline is what builds an unshakeable foundation of trust between the creator of the documentation and the person who relies on it.

Your Team: The Architects of Trust

In the AI era, your in-house team is not just a group of writers; they are the architects of trust. They are the essential human element that provides:

• Subject Matter Expertise: The engineer knows the machine’s inner workings. The technical writer understands how to translate that knowledge into a clear instruction. An AI can’t do this on its own. It requires a skilled professional to guide it, to vet its output, and to confirm that the final document is technically sound.

• Ethical and Safety Judgment: An AI has no moral compass. It cannot weigh the potential risk of a poorly-worded instruction. Your team, trained in STE, can. They are equipped to identify where a small ambiguity could lead to a large problem.

• Consistency and Control: STE gives your team a universal standard. Regardless of who is writing, reviewing, or editing, the documentation will have a single, unified voice of clarity and authority. This consistency, enforced by people, is a key component of a reliable system.

A Unified Team, A Unified Standard

The greatest value of STE is realised when it becomes a standard embraced by your entire team. Engineers, technical writers, and instructional designers all contribute to the final product. By adopting a common, disciplined language, they ensure a seamless flow of information from design to documentation to user implementation.

This is a strategic asset that has been proven to work for global leaders like M-Files and Akamai Technologies, who have transformed their communication into a strategic advantage that reduces risk and builds confidence with every document they create.

The strategic value of STE extends beyond error reduction; it serves as a foundational layer for ontology engineering. By enforcing a controlled vocabulary and a consistent syntax, STE transforms technical documentation into a clean, structured data source. This linguistic standardisation prevents semantic drift—where terms are interpreted inconsistently across departments or systems. For large organisations investing in knowledge graphs and AI-driven content analysis, this ontological clarity translates directly into significant cost savings, drastically cutting the time and resources needed for data harmonisation and machine learning training prep.

Take the Next Step to Building Trust

The future of technical communication is not about technology replacing people, but about people mastering technology to build safer, more reliable systems. It’s about using the power of AI while ensuring that the final output is held to the highest standard of human accountability.

Equip your team with the indispensable skills they need to be the guardians of clarity and the architects of trust. Join one of our upcoming online training sessions and give your team the critical advantage of ASD-STE100 proficiency.

Secure your spot in our upcoming October training sessions:

• October 16 – 17 (Online): Asia Pacific | Precision for Safety: Rigorous ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English Compliance for Technical Documents

• October 20 – 21 (Online): Europe | Future-Proof Your Documentation: Mastering Simplified Technical English (ASD-STE100) Compliance

• October 22 – 24 (Online): North & South America | Mastering Simplified Technical English: Ensuring Clarity and Compliance in Technical Documentation

• October 27 – 28 (Online): Middle East & Africa | Practical ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English Workshops: Ensuring Documentation ComplianceLearn more and register now to give your team the critical advantage of STE.

To learn more and begin your journey towards a more robust digital future, we invite you to explore the international standard and its practical application at www.asd-ste100.net.

Contact us today to explore how a partnership with Shufrans TechDocs can elevate your team to the next level of STE mastery.

🗓️ View our training calendar.

www.shufrans.com

For industries defined by innovation and complexity, including software development, renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, healthcare technology, e-learning, and logistics, your technical documentation isn’t merely an instruction guide. It’s a critical asset, the essential bridge between your sophisticated innovations and the people who use, maintain, and rely on them globally.

However, achieving consistent, unambiguous information across diverse teams and international markets presents a significant challenge. When documentation lacks clarity, organisations can inadvertently face:

• Increased support demands, diverting valuable resources.
• User errors, leading to frustration, costly rework, or even safety implications.
• Extended and expensive translation cycles due to convoluted source material.
• Delays in market entry, as documentation struggles to keep pace with product development.
• Compliance hurdles in highly regulated industries, stemming from imprecise instructions.
• Undermined brand reputation, when sophisticated products are accompanied by confusing guides.

This isn’t just about grammatical precision. It’s about operational efficiency, global market access, and proactively managing business risks.

The Problem: When Precision is Paramount, but Language Isn’t Always Clear

Consider the engineer troubleshooting complex industrial equipment, the clinician relying on a medical device manual, or the developer integrating a new software solution. Their success hinges on absolute clarity. Yet, traditional technical writing often struggles with:

• Unnecessary jargon and colloquialisms.
• Inconsistent terminology and phrasing.
• Overly complex sentence structures.
• Subtle cultural nuances that don’t translate universally.

This is precisely where Simplified Technical English (STE) transcends a mere writing guideline and transforms into a strategic enabler.

STE: Your Pathway to Unambiguous Communication and Strategic Advantage

Developed initially for the aerospace industry, STE is a controlled language that employs a restricted vocabulary, simplified grammar, and consistent phrasing. It’s not about oversimplifying content. It’s about eliminating ambiguity to ensure every reader, regardless of their linguistic background, grasps the exact intended meaning – the first time.

For businesses operating in highly technical and global environments, adopting STE offers a tangible competitive edge:

• Enhanced User Experience: Making your complex products genuinely accessible and user-friendly.
• Streamlined Global Operations: Significantly reducing translation costs and accelerating international deployment.
• Improved Safety and Compliance: Minimising misinterpretation in critical instructions.
• Operational Efficiency: Reducing errors, rework, and support burdens across your organisation.

The Human Element: Why AI Isn’t the Full Answer for Technical Communication

In an era increasingly shaped by Artificial Intelligence, the question often arises: “Will AI replace technical writers?” At Shufrans TechDocs, our perspective is clear: AI is a powerful assistant, not a replacement for the human technical writer.

While AI excels at pattern recognition, rapid text generation, and adherence to rules (like STE guidelines), it profoundly lacks the critical human attributes essential for truly effective technical documentation:

• Nuance and Empathy: AI can’t fully grasp the subtle context, unstated assumptions, or the emotional state of a user navigating a complex task. Human writers apply empathy to anticipate user needs and craft clear pathways to understanding.
• Critical Thinking & Problem-Solving: AI generates text based on existing data. It doesn’t strategically identify core information gaps, troubleshoot complex user scenarios, or innovate new ways to present information. That requires human ingenuity.
• Subject Matter Expert (SME) Interaction: Extracting complex, often tacit, knowledge from engineers, developers, and scientists demands sophisticated interpersonal skills, active listening, and the ability to ask the right questions – tasks far beyond current AI capabilities.
• Ethical Judgment & Responsibility: Especially in regulated sectors, the responsibility for accuracy, safety, and compliance rests with humans, who must exercise ethical judgment, not simply generate text.

STE provides a robust framework, and AI can certainly assist in checking compliance or generating initial drafts. However, it is the human technical writer who applies strategic oversight, translates complex ideas into accessible language, and ultimately ensures the documentation genuinely serves its purpose and its audience. Our services are designed to empower and elevate these indispensable human skills.

Where STE Becomes Indispensable – A Sector Focus

At Shufrans TechDocs, we understand the unique documentation challenges within your industry. We partner with organisations like yours to help master STE:

• In Software Development: Imagine documentation that genuinely empowers users and reduces your support burden, driving adoption and satisfaction for intricate software solutions.
• In Renewable Energy & Sustainability: Flawless operational and maintenance manuals are critical for safety, efficiency, and the reliable functioning of complex infrastructure worldwide.
• In Heavy Machinery & Industrial Equipment: Precision in assembly, maintenance, and safety manuals directly impacts uptime, worker safety, and regulatory adherence for your sophisticated equipment.
• In Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals: In an industry where accuracy can save lives, STE ensures research protocols, manufacturing guides, and clinical trial documentation are unequivocally clear.
• In Healthcare Technology & Medical Devices: The clarity of instructions for life-saving devices and diagnostic tools is paramount for both user efficacy and regulatory scrutiny.
• In E-learning & Corporate Training Solutions: Consistent and globally comprehensible learning materials accelerate knowledge transfer and improve educational outcomes across diverse audiences.
• In Logistics & Supply Chain Management Technology: Clear documentation for complex technology solutions ensures seamless operations, reducing costly errors and delays in global supply chains.

Our Partnership: Equipping You for Documentation Excellence

Shufrans TechDocs provides the expertise to seamlessly integrate STE into your organisation’s content ecosystem:

1. STE Training: We equip your technical writers and content creators with the principles and practical application of STE, building sustainable in-house capability. This allows your human talent to focus on critical thinking and content strategy.
2. STE Proofreading & Editing: Our specialists meticulously review your existing documentation, refining it to meet stringent STE standards and eradicate ambiguity, ensuring legacy content is future-proofed.
3. STE Technical Writing Services: For new projects or when internal resources are stretched, our experienced writers craft precise, compliant, and user-friendly documentation directly in STE, leveraging their unique human understanding.

Don’t let unclear technical documentation be an overlooked obstacle. Invest in clarity, precision, and global understanding, empowered by human expertise and strategic frameworks like STE.

Ready to explore how human expertise and strategic frameworks like STE can elevate your technical communication? Connect with Shufrans TechDocs today.

🗓️ View our training calendar.

*Course fee includes exercises, learning aids, certificate of completion, and 120-day post-training support.

⁺⁺A group discount of up to €500 is applicable when two or more participants sign up for the same event. Send us your questions: enquiry@shufrans-techdocs.com.

🏷️ A €210 fee discount is applicable when you also sign up for 🆕 Certified STE Masterclass | Europe Online.

What’s Included & Incentives

• Inclusions: Course materials, practical exercises, learning aids, a certificate of completion, and 120 days of post-training support.

• Group Discount: Save up to €500 when two or more colleagues register for the same cohort.

• Bundle Offer: Receive a €210 fee discount when you also register for the upcoming Certified STE Masterclass | Europe Online.

• Enquiries: Have questions or need a custom corporate booking? Send us a message at enquiry@asd-ste100.net.

Summary of Simplified Technical English (STE)

Simplified Technical English (ASD-STE100) is the internationally recognised controlled language specification designed to make complex technical manuals clear, unambiguous, and easily understood by a global audience. In today’s enterprise landscape—where automated translation engines and AI-assisted workflows rapidly scale content output but also multiply linguistic errors—upstream standardisation is more critical than ever.

By eliminating ambiguity and enforcing strict syntactic control, STE protects your documentation pipeline, acts as a reliable grounding layer for automated systems, drastically reduces translation costs, and prevents costly operational risks. While often a formal requirement for aerospace and defence maintenance documentation, STE is readily adapted across all high-compliance technical industries. Led by Shumin Chen, this foundational training teaches participants how to correctly and effectively apply STE rules in practice, navigate common writing pitfalls, and correct the frequent misinterpretations of core guidelines that undermine technical quality.

Why select a Simplified Technical English training with Shufrans?

Shumin is a very knowledgeable STE instructor. She kept the course interesting and was always open to our questions/feedback. The introduction to Simplified Technical English has been greatly beneficial for my understanding of what the specification entails. In terms of preferred rules, I cannot pinpoint a specific set of STE writing rules as they are all valuable. This was my favorite part of the course as I enjoyed analyzing how other writers went about using STE to best apply it to their line of work.

The rewriting workshop in Simplified Technical English training Europe was my favorite part of the course as I enjoyed analyzing how other writers went about using STE to best apply it to their line of work. I would highly recommend this course to all technical writers. Shumin Chen takes the time to clearly explain the rules of STE. A very attentive instructor, indeed. If given the chance, I would really enjoy working along side her. Michael Palmieri, Documentation Specialist, AON3D | The Advanced Additive Manufacturing Platform

STE Course Outline*

We’re committed to providing the highest quality learning experience in all our online workshops. Therefore, we’ve made the decision to cap all our online workshop session sizes at just five participants, starting 5 May 2025.

This intimate virtual environment fosters richer discussions, more personalised feedback, and a greater overall impact on your understanding and application of key technical communication standards like Simplified Technical English. Learn better, communicate better, across all our courses. This two-day Online STE Workshop includes interactive training, exercises, and a 120-day post-training consultation.

Day 1: Classroom Training & Foundations

• Practical overview of Simplified Technical English (ASD-STE100) and why strict structural control is essential for modern technical documentation.

• How STE ensures absolute clarity for both native and non-native speakers across global audiences.

• The direct risk-mitigation and cost benefits of adopting the STE international writing standard in high-compliance environments.

• Core writing rules and how to apply them systematically in daily practice.

• Mastering the general vocabulary lexicon: Approved and unapproved words, and the strict structural rationale behind them.

• Eliminating ambiguous phrasing, noun clusters, and syntactic drift that undermine technical accuracy.

• Establishing a rigorous baseline for clear, human-readable documentation that withstands automated review and translation workflows.

Day 2: Practical Application, Review, & Exercises

• How to deal with industry-specific terminology and integrate specialised nouns safely into controlled writing.

• How to apply STE across various documentation types (such as maintenance manuals, service bulletins, and operating procedures).

• How to implement STE frameworks with minimal disruption to ongoing production and existing documentation archives.

• Practical hands-on workshop session for applying strict STE rules directly to your own company documents.

• Systematic review, live editorial breakdown, and discussion of participants’ own documents to reinforce learning.

• Collaborative review of common error patterns and alternative phrasing solutions.

• Final classroom presentation of edited documents to establish a repeatable, high-integrity quality standard for your team, directly reducing the cost of creating and maintaining technical publications.

*Shufrans also offers customised ASD-STE100 training solutions tailored to meet your specific requirements. These courses are normally provided at the customer’s premises.

Who should attend this Simplified Technical English training?

• Executive Leadership & Strategy: CIOs, CTOs, COOs, and Compliance Managers

• Documentation & Editorial Leads: Documentation Managers, Editors, and Technical Writers

• Engineering & Technical Specialists: Engineering Managers, SMEs, Software Research Engineers, Service Engineers, and AI Content Engineers

• Operations & Support Teams: Maintenance, ILS, Operation, Product, and Project Managers, plus Customer Support

• Training & Content Creation: Instructional Designers, Translators, Translation Managers, and Technical Illustrators.

What technical writing outcomes to expect?

Our interactive training, exercises, and workshop will equip participants to standardise content and achieve measurable operational outcomes:

• Enhanced Communication & Efficiency: Authors will gain the structural discipline required to create clear, consistent, and easily translatable technical documentation—providing a reliable grounding layer for automated translation engines and AI-assisted workflows, facilitating seamless global communication, and streamlining the authoring process.

• Improved Operational Safety & Reduced Downtime: By mastering STE principles, teams will produce unambiguous documentation that eliminates procedural misunderstandings, directly safeguarding operational safety and driving a measurable reduction in costly AOG/downtime and human error.

• Optimised Lifecycle Support & Cost Reduction: Standardisation enables modular writing, semantic consistency, and efficient content reuse. This optimises product lifecycle support, future-proofs documentation against shifting publishing stacks, and significantly reduces the overall cost of creating and maintaining technical publications.

What customers are saying..

The introduction in Simplified Technical English training Europe was a good and concise way to familiarize yourself with STE basics. I’ve a background in plain language, so for example the rule on noun clusters makes perfect sense. I’m all about simplification, so substituting verbs like “eliminate” for verbs like “remove” or “stop” will be my new quest. The STE exercises were helpful in getting to grasp with STE during the training workshop. I’d very likely recommend this course to anyone planning to introduce STE as it’s got a great practical angle. Jenni Virtaluoto, PhD, Senior Lecturer, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

ASD-STE100 Trainer’s qualifications

Ms. Shumin Chen, principal trainer and consultant at Shufrans TechDocs, received her professional on-the-job training in the field of Simplified Technical English under the tutelage of Dr Frans Wijma, a renowned linguist and documentation expert. Together as an experienced global team, they combined their expertise to benefit enterprise clients worldwide, having delivered training and consultancy services to over 200 companies to date. Shufrans TechDocs stands as an industry leader with unmatched depth of experience in providing certified Simplified Technical English training in Europe.

Shumin has guided numerous organisations through their complex documentation and standardisation needs. Although STE was originally developed for the aerospace industry—specifically for aircraft maintenance manuals—she has successfully demonstrated that its foundational principles provide an essential governance framework across a wide range of technical sectors, including machinery, IT, automotive, energy, and medical equipment.

As enterprises increasingly deploy automated translation engines, LLMs, and AI-assisted content workflows, Shumin’s approach proves that strict linguistic control is more vital than ever. Because structural clarity and syntactic discipline are universally required, few, if any, changes to the specification are necessary to adapt STE as a reliable upstream grounding layer for modern digital and AI-driven publishing stacks.

*Course fee includes exercises, learning aids, certificate of completion, and 120-day post-training support.

⁺⁺A group discount of up to €500 is applicable when two or more participants sign up for the same event. Send us your questions: enquiry@asd-ste100.net.

🏷️ A €210 fee discount is applicable when you also sign up for 🆕 Certified STE Masterclass | US Canada Online.

Summary

Simplified Technical English (ASD-STE100) is a controlled language designed to make technical manuals clear, unambiguous, and easily understood by a global audience. Mandated or recommended by key military and commercial specifications, STE reduces translation costs and serves as a vital upstream grounding layer for automated translation engines and AI workflows.

Led by Ms. Shumin Chen (Shufrans TechDocs), this training guides participants through the correct and effective practical application of STE, addressing common writing errors and the frequent misapplication of core rules across all technical industries.

For enquiries and registration: enquiry@asd-ste100.net

Course outline*

We are committed to providing the highest quality learning experience across all our online workshops. To ensure richer discussions, deeper document reviews, and maximum individual impact, all online workshop sessions are strictly capped at just five participants.

This intimate virtual environment fosters precise feedback and mastery of key technical communication standards like Simplified Technical English. Each three-day online workshop includes interactive training, hands-on exercises, and a dedicated 120-day post-training consultation period.

Day 1: Classroom Training & Foundations

• Practical overview of Simplified Technical English (ASD-STE100)

• How STE ensures absolute clarity for both native and non-native speakers across global networks

• Strategic risk-mitigation and cost benefits of adopting the STE standard

• Core writing rules and systematic daily application

Day 2: Application & Vocabulary

• Navigating the general vocabulary dictionary

• Approved versus unapproved words and the structural rationale behind them

• Handling industry-specific terminology and specialised nouns safely

• Applying STE across diverse manuals, service bulletins, and operating procedures

Day 3: Review, Implementation, & Exercises

• Hands-on workshop session applying strict rules to your own corporate materials

• Live editorial review, breakdown, and discussion of participant texts

• Implementing frameworks with minimal disruption to ongoing production and legacy documentation

• Classroom presentation and restructuring of participant documents to reinforce mastery

*Shufrans also offers customised ASD-STE100 training solutions tailored to meet your specific corporate requirements, normally delivered on-site at customer premises.

What customers are saying..

I was looking forward to the training and was not disappointed. I think that the training was valuable and would recommend that my colleagues take the training either on line or in person. Being able to send a sample document and then working on it together using my new STE skills was very helpful and valuable. Shumin was extremely knowledgeable and gave many practical examples. I hope to be able to make use of the support period post-training. Deborah Tonkin, Technical Information Engineer, Komatsu

Why select a Simplified Technical English training with Shufrans?

The introduction to ASD-STE100 was good and informative for someone like me with zero knowledge of the STE standard before. Rule 6.3 in STE writing summarizes the best of what I can take with me. There was quite a lot from the STE exercises to consume regarding grammar. Nevertheless, the worksheets were very good and helpful. I gained quite a lot of knowledge from them and they were the best part of this training workshop. Shumin was very professional and sharp as a razor. The best takeaway for me from her workshop is to give more thought to how I build my sentences rather than focussing on specific ‘allowed’ or ‘approved’ words. Jeppe Friis, Technical Inspector, Maersk Drilling Maintenance Support

Who should attend this ASD-STE100 workshop?

What ASD-STE100 workshop training outcomes to expect?

Our interactive training, exercises and workshop, will teach participants to standardise content to:

• Enhanced Communication & Efficiency: Authors will gain the skills to create clear, consistent, and easily translatable technical documentation, facilitating effective communication with a global audience and streamlining the writing process.
• Improved Operational Safety & Reduced Downtime: By mastering STE principles, teams will produce unambiguous documentation that minimises misunderstandings, directly contributing to improved operational safety and a reduction in costly AOG/downtime.
• Optimised Lifecycle Support & Cost Reduction: Training will enable modular writing and content reuse, leading to maximised consistency, optimised product lifecycle support, and a significant reduction in the overall cost of creating and maintaining technical publications.

ASD-STE100 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.

Course fee includes exercises, learning aids, certificate of completion, and 120 days of post-training support.

Group discounts of up to €500 are available when two or more participants register from the same company. An additional €210 fee discount applies when your team also registers for the 🆕 Certified STE Masterclass | Asia Pacific (APAC) Online..

For enquiries and registration, contact us at enquiry@asd-ste100.net.

Simplified Technical English (ASD-STE100) is a controlled language designed to make technical manuals clear, unambiguous, and easily understood by a global audience. Mandated or recommended by specifications like MIL-STD-3048, S1000D, and ATA iSpec 2200, STE makes translations cheaper and more accurate while ensuring structural completeness.

In today’s digital landscape, STE also serves as the essential upstream grounding layer for automated translation engines, LLMs, and RAG pipelines, preventing syntactic drift and hallucinations. While a formal requirement for aerospace and defence maintenance, its rigorous principles are easily adapted across all technical industries. Led by Shumin Chen, this training teaches participants how to apply STE rules correctly in practice, avoid common writing pitfalls, and eliminate hidden operational risks.

The ASD-STE100 workshop conducted by Shufrans TechDocs made for a very good introduction to STE for new as well as intermediate users of the STE writing standard. The presentation on rules was very clear and I liked the emphasis on the fact that the rules are weighted and how one can use them flexibly. The exercises completed during this training were good and provided real world examples in technical writing in a practical way. I’d very likely recommend this course to someone else. This course is a must for any new technical writers or technical publication employees. Neil Winson, Technical Writer, Airbus Helicopters

MEA Online STE Workshop Course Outline*

We are committed to providing the highest quality learning experience across all our online workshops. To ensure richer discussions, deeper document reviews, and maximum individual impact, all online workshop sessions are strictly capped at just five participants.

This intimate virtual environment fosters precise feedback and mastery of key technical communication standards like Simplified Technical English. Each two-day online workshop includes interactive training, hands-on exercises, and a dedicated 120-day post-training consultation period.

Day 1: Classroom Training & Foundations

• Practical overview of Simplified Technical English (ASD-STE100)

• How STE ensures absolute clarity for both native and non-native speakers across global networks

• Strategic risk-mitigation and cost benefits of adopting the STE standard

• Core writing rules and systematic daily application

• Navigating the general vocabulary dictionary

• Approved versus unapproved words and the structural rationale behind them

Day 2: Practical Application, Review, & Exercises

• Handling industry-specific terminology and specialised nouns safely

• Applying STE across diverse manuals, service bulletins, and operating procedures

• Implementing frameworks with minimal disruption to ongoing production and legacy documentation

• Hands-on workshop session applying strict rules to your own corporate materials

• Live editorial review, breakdown, and discussion of participant texts

• Classroom presentation and restructuring of participant documents to reinforce mastery

*Shufrans also offers customised ASD-STE100 training solutions tailored to meet your specific corporate requirements, normally delivered on-site at customer premises.

Who should attend this Simplified Technical English training?

• Executive & Strategy: CIOs, CTOs, COOs, Compliance and Quality Managers

• Documentation & Editorial: Documentation Managers, Editors, Technical Writers, Technical Illustrators, and Graphics Specialists

• Engineering & Technical: Engineering Managers, SMEs, Software Research Engineers, and Engineers who create documentation

• Operations & Support: Maintenance, ILS, Operation, Product, and Project Managers, plus Customer Support Managers

• Training, Translation & Content: Translation Managers, Translators.

What training outcomes to expect?

Enhanced Communication & Efficiency: Authors will gain the structural discipline required to create clear, consistent, and easily translatable technical documentation—providing a reliable grounding layer for automated translation engines and AI-assisted workflows, facilitating seamless global communication, and streamlining the authoring process.

Improved Operational Safety & Reduced Downtime: By mastering STE principles, teams will produce unambiguous documentation that eliminates procedural misunderstandings, directly safeguarding operational safety and driving a measurable reduction in costly AOG/downtime and human error.

Optimised Lifecycle Support & Cost Reduction: Standardisation enables modular writing, semantic consistency, and efficient content reuse. This optimises product lifecycle support, future-proofs documentation against shifting publishing stacks, and significantly reduces the overall cost of creating and maintaining technical publications.

ASD-STE100 Trainer’s qualifications

Ms. Shumin Chen, Principal Trainer and Consultant at Shufrans TechDocs, received her professional on-the-job training in Simplified Technical English under the tutelage of Dr Frans Wijma, a renowned linguist and documentation expert. Together as an experienced global team, they have delivered training and consultancy services to over 200 companies worldwide. Shufrans TechDocs stands as an industry leader with unmatched depth of experience in providing certified STE training.

Shumin has guided numerous organisations through their complex documentation and standardisation needs. Although STE was originally developed for the aerospace industry—specifically for aircraft maintenance manuals—she has successfully demonstrated that its foundational principles provide an essential governance framework across a wide range of technical sectors, including machinery, IT, automotive, energy, and medical equipment.

As enterprises increasingly deploy automated translation engines, LLMs, and AI-assisted workflows, strict linguistic control is more vital than ever. Because structural clarity and syntactic discipline are universally required, few, if any, changes to the specification are necessary to adapt STE as a reliable upstream grounding layer for modern digital and AI-driven publishing stacks.