New Printing Process Slashes Translation Costs For U.S. Auto Makers

New System Slashes Four to Five Weeks Printing Time for Glove Box Manuals

Challenge

Tweddle Litho, the world's largest supplier of literature for the Big 3 U.S. automakers, publishes more than 4.5 million vehicle portfolios per year. The information is critical to vehicle buyers — in fact, car-makers can't ship an automobile without the manual. In addition, the documents must be translated into local languages wherever the cars are shipped and customized to local regulations. To compound the challenge, the manuals often are compiled at the last minute and updated throughout the life of the car model, leaving little turn-around time for revisions to the texts or the layouts.

Moreover, the manuals themselves are quite complex. Glove box sets vary depending on the car model and require a different configuration for each of the manufacturer's models. The documents must be modified to conform to international regulations for each of the 60 countries that import the cars, and then translated into as many as 30 different languages. The manufacturer must maintain three document versions — the current model and one for each of the next two years...