Customised neural machine translation system for construction industry helps LVS to increase the accessibility of standardisation information in Latvian

Client

Latvian Standard (LVS) is the Latvian national standardisation body, which is responsible for organising the development of Latvian national standards, adapting international standards, creating and maintaining the digital collection of them, as well as determining standards and relevant information. LVS digital collection contains more than 25,000 standardisation documents (at least 1 million pages!), which include international, European, and national standards. Most of them are in English and only a small part (below 5%) have been translated into Latvian. The institution has identified that one of the most important directions in the development of standardisation services is to increase the accessibility of standardisation information in Latvian, which is possible due to the development of language technologies, Tilde’s experience, and global success.

Challenge

The task of LVS is to disseminate reliable and up-to-date information for the benefit of society and the national standardisation process. Part of the institution’s effort is to make all the precise and important work of continuous review and development of standards available to a broader audience, which includes both Latvia and foreign countries.

To ensure this, LVS needs to translate both texts and documents daily, as well as have the information quickly available in both English and Latvian for all the different industries where standardisation applies.

Solution

In collaboration with Tilde, the work of LVS translators and editors has become more effective, as the Computer-Assisted Translation tool has been implemented. Also, a customised Neural Machine Translations (NMT) engine was developed in the English – Latvian language combination and adapted to the construction domain, providing the more efficient and precise translation of standards.

Integration

The customised NMT system has been fully integrated into LVS work processes, allowing translators to use MT via Tilde’s MT platform and also the Computer Assisted Translation tool environment that the organisation uses. Additionally, MT has been integrated into the e-shop of LVS in order to widen the purchasing possibilities of users thanks to AI-powered technology.

Results

“It was clear to us that in order to rise above the current challenges we had to embrace innovations and change the way we work and serve our customers. The neural machine translation system is the most advanced technology today, which will allow us to rapidly move to the next level of digital transformation in the institution and open new opportunities for customers in the future.”

Ingars Pilmanis, Head of LVS

LVS is currently using MT in their daily process for the construction industry and is looking to further develop other MT systems to cover the main industries. The MT system has been integrated into the institution’s workflows as well as on their website, so that visitors aiming to acquire international standards have a wider choice in regard to the documents, availability, and desired output.