Transforming Manufacturing Growth and Efficiency with AI Translation

Alexandra Conza, Senior Strategic Content Marketing Manager at Smartcat, explains why AI translation tools are essential to manufacturing growth and efficiency. This article originally appeared in Insight Jam, an enterprise IT community that enables human conversation on AI.

The manufacturing sector is inherently global. From sourcing raw materials to distributing finished goods and training diverse workforces, manufacturers operate across borders, languages, and cultures. Navigating this complex landscape requires seamless, accurate, and rapid communication, which has traditionally been a challenge marked by delays and high costs.

However, AI translation platforms fundamentally change the game, enabling manufacturers to expand more effectively, optimize operations, reduce expenditure, and empower their global teams. Leading manufacturing companies are leveraging AI-powered translation and localization to achieve measurable outcomes and gain a strategic advantage.

Accelerating Global Expansion and Marketing Reach

Entering and succeeding in new international markets hinges on effective communication. This means localizing everything from product strategy, content, and technical marketing collateral to vehicle launch materials. Translation and localization AI platforms dramatically speed up this process, delivering high-quality multilingual content for automotive manufacturers to internal training documents, videos, and audio files for multinational teams.

The impact on speed is significant. On average, automotive manufacturers achieved a 50 percent faster turnaround time with Smartcat, and one major global car manufacturer reduced its average translation project times from over two months to just two to three weeks. This accelerated pace allows for rapid global deployment of localized marketing campaigns and product information, fueling timely and impactful marketing and sales efforts.

Streamlining Operations and Improving Workflows

Operational efficiency is paramount in manufacturing, and traditional translation methods often involve fragmented processes and excessive manual work. AI translation and localization platforms can integrate with enterprise tools, eliminating repetitive tasks and reducing the time spent on tasks. This enables organizations like a global optical instrument manufacturer to complete more than 50 percent more projects simultaneously. This automation also mitigates the risk of errors, leading to up to a 70 percent workload reduction on editing and review.

For example, a leading optical instruments manufacturer saves an estimated two hours per global content project with AI translation and localization, reducing the time to produce one e-learning course in over ten languages from thirteen to eleven hours. Automated project management solutions, sometimes called “Lights Out” management, can handle routine operations like task assignments and payment management, yielding substantial time savings. These automated project management features are monitored 24/7 with complete transparency.

Furthermore, AI translation and localization platforms centralize each client’s unique linguistic assets like translation memories and glossaries, ensuring consistency and quality across projects and teams. Collaborative workflows allow for seamless teamwork with real-time collaboration and task assignment. This collaborative environment has helped companies eliminate the chance of ‘doing the work twice’ that occurred with offline processes. Average project durations have decreased by up to two weeks, with some manufacturers reporting a remarkable 400 percent improvement in turnaround time, from ten days to two to three.

Delivering Substantial Cost Reductions

Cost savings are a major driver for adopting translation and localization AI, with average cost savings typically falling between 50 percent and 70 percent compared to traditional translation and localization methods. For example, one leading medical technology company could translate twice as much with the same budget as previous language service providers.

These savings are achieved through various mechanisms, including leveraging AI translation that continuously learns and applies insights from existing linguistic data. This means that AI-enhanced translations can deliver cost savings, greater speed, and improved accuracy.

Enhancing Employee Training and Communication

In manufacturing, a well-trained global workforce is essential for safety, efficiency, and product understanding. Localizing technical documents, user manuals, and industry-specific e-learning is critical. AI translation and localization platforms make this process faster, more cost-effective, and scalable.

AI translation platforms empower manufacturing companies to significantly enhance global employee training and communication. Organizations are leveraging these tools to train thousands of employees globally, creating comprehensive multilingual learning paths supporting new equipment operation, critical safety protocols, or widespread strategy adoption.

This technology facilitates a rapid expansion of linguistic reach, with some companies easily increasing their target languages and supporting projects across dozens of countries. This also enables the consistent creation of a high volume of localized content, with some organizations producing an average of 18 online learning courses per language every quarter. For a global tire manufacturer, the speed of localizing training videos dramatically improved: video translation projects, including dubbing, can be completed in as little as one hour per file, while initial subtitling translation is reduced from days to just 15 minutes with AI.

Driving Precision and Quality Assurance

In a sector where precision, compliance, and safety are paramount, translation quality is non-negotiable. AI alone isn’t enough; combining AI and human expertise is key. An AI that provides high-quality, brand-consistent translations must be able to learn from its expert human reviewers to continuously improve its accuracy and adapt to specific brand terminology or technical terms.

Human proofreaders at a leading global water technology manufacturer reported accuracy rates well above 90 percent for complex languages like Chinese, Korean, and Japanese when using Smartcat’s AI. Reviewers at other organizations noted a significantly lower number of corrections than traditional agencies, accelerating the editing process and improving efficiency.

The Future is AI-Human Collaboration

The strategic adoption of AI translation platforms enables many manufacturing companies to achieve significant advancements in efficiency, cost reduction, and global reach. These comprehensive solutions empower organizations to accelerate AI adoption across business units and achieve targeted global results, and are fast becoming fundamental platforms in the modern manufacturing landscape.

Looking ahead, integrating human expertise with adaptive AI systems will continue redefining global communication. This collaborative approach is a force multiplier, holding enormous potential for future worldwide communication and growth, particularly for highly regulated sectors like manufacturing, where linguistic barriers historically limited expansion.

For modern manufacturing, AI translation is a strategic necessity for scaling efficiently, reducing costs, and empowering teams worldwide. When AI and human experts work together, manufacturers gain the accuracy, reliability, and domain-specific nuance required to innovate and compete in an increasingly interconnected world.