Patrick Evanson
Director of Localization at PGLS
With margins under a magnifying glass and workforce retention a top priority, services that enhance performance efficiency and workforce engagement, such as generative AI and manufacturing translation services, will play a critical role in 2025 and onward. Efficiency, safety, quality, and other core metrics are in focus, and most leading manufacturers plan to make significant investments in these areas, especially through technology-led solutions.
When integrating new processes and technology, language barriers add to the complexity. High-quality translation—of technical manuals, plant documentation, training videos, and other operational documents—presents an opportunity to bridge this divide. With advanced technology-powered language services, you can attract, train, and motivate a linguistically diverse workforce for optimal performance. Here’s how you can take advantage.
How Manufacturing Translation Services Advance Production Efficiency, Compliance, and Safety
When advancing efficiency goals, optimizing existing practices can make all the difference. For example, replacing generic or machine-only manufacturing documentation translations with professional-grade translations can improve accuracy, leading to better comprehension and increased efficiency.
Accuracy of translated content also matters to compliance, especially in regulated industries, such as pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals. For example, as manufacturers face increased scrutiny of products sold in the European Union, documenting such factors as carbon emissions, energy usage, product ingredients and formulas, and other attributes has become an increasingly important (and regulated) practice. If executed poorly, the penalties can be steep, and language barriers are unlikely to be an acceptable excuse.
Finally, manufacturing translation services support better safety outcomes. Among stateside employers, statistics show that Latino workers experience a job fatality rate that is 24 percent higher than the national average. Accidents and downtime are costly, and the harm to individual health and well-being can be irreparable.
While the factors contributing to this outcome may vary, one tactic to help improve workplace conditions is consistency in communications. High-quality translations support a more thorough understanding of operational manuals and safety guidelines, ensuring workers receive equal opportunities to succeed and thrive at work.
Generative AI in Manufacturing
Generative AI will also inevitably play a role in scaling production quality and efficiency. According to Deloitte’s 2024 Future of the Digital Customer Experience survey, 55 percent of product manufacturers already use generative AI as part of an overall digital transformation strategy. More than 40 percent plan to increase their investment in gen AI over the next three years.
Among its many applications, generative AI in manufacturing has led to significant, cost-saving innovations related to predictive maintenance, route design, supply chain optimization, and much more. Similarly, gen AI is transforming the language service provider (LSP) industry’s value proposition. Large language models enhance the translation quality of complex, context-sensitive content, creating opportunities for consolidated, global partnerships that deliver optimized technical manual translation and other training content at scale.
Investments in advanced technology like gen AI must come hand-in-hand with investments in personnel training to maximize impact. Human supervision of data structuring, AI output quality control, and other tech-driven operations remains essential.
Engaging Diverse Workforces with Language Services
The digital transformation of manufacturing has as much to do with workforce engagement as it does production. Since employee turnover remains a top concern this year, per a 2024 National Association of Manufacturers survey of member companies, leaders are seeking ways to overcome the curse of frequent turnover. If your workforce is linguistically diverse, manufacturing translation services (including highly efficient, technology-led solutions) can assist with enhancing communication and engagement.
A strategic effort to bridge language barriers can help staff feel valued and heard, encouraging and empowering individuals to do their best work. Plus, when companies invest meaningfully in their employees over the long term, they are more likely to receive positive word-of-mouth referrals that enhance employer brand perceptions. It is difficult to track attribution, but investments in a positive workplace reputation can not only help attract high quality employees, but retain them, too.
Top Benefits of Manufacturing Translation Services
In summary, manufacturing translation services offer the following benefits in 2025:
- Employee engagement: Remote interpretation services offer significant cost savings while providing employees with what they need to communicate and comprehend essential safety information. Affirming interpreted messaging with translated, localized training materials and safety instructions will enhance compliance and comprehension.
- Increased capacity: Technical manual translation and other training content can help drum up additional productivity without overtaxing budgets.
- Volume discounts for consolidated partnerships: When considering a comprehensive partnership across the organization, leading LSPs can often provide a volume discount. This financial benefit also leads to increased quality and consistency, as a manufacturer can count on its LSP leveraging the same translation memory for content, regardless of plant location.
Develop Your Manufacturing Translation Services Partnership
Don’t allow your investments in technical manuals and plant documentation to stop short of reaching your multilingual staff. When language barriers are present, and those responsible for high-volume tasks have a limited English-speaking proficiency, technical manual and plant documentation translation creates the opportunity for all employees to contribute effectively, leading to better overall production efficiency.
Ready to build your comprehensive manufacturing translation services partnership? PGLS offers translation, localization, and interpreting solutions for global manufacturing enterprises in over 200 languages and regional varieties.
Read our eBook and contact PGLS to learn more.