With a terminology management strategy in place, organizations of any size are able to use the same terms consistently within and across the various documents and labeling that accompany a product or service. As these documents are typically created in a collaborative environment, terminology management is the most effi cient solution for making sure that the organization as a whole uses the same terms to describe the same features and functions.
“Terminology management can improve the effectiveness and effi ciency of an organization’s communication efforts across multiple channels.”
Uwe Muegge, CSOFT International Ltd.
It’s no easy task to identify the words that are important enough to mandate their consistent use within and across documents. If the organization has a team of terminology stakeholders (representatives from R&D, operations, technical, and marketing communications, not to forget legal) that identifi es and collects terms, the challenge is to reach consensus among the various groups and interests.
With comprehensive, project-specifi c termbases available at the beginning of a project, team members are free from the tedious task of researching terms on their own. The availability of a project termbase also reduces the danger of multiple coworkers accidentally coining multiple terms for the same feature, which, if undetected, has the potential to confuse the user or cause unnecessary expense and delays for terminology harmonization later on in the product lifecycle.
Correcting terminological inconsistencies in existing documents and mitigating the negative impact this additional quality assurance step has on a project’s budget and its release schedule is not the worst-case scenario. Much worse would be the case of a postponed launch caused by delays in the regulatory approval process because of incorrect or inconsistent terminology in the submission documents. I know of a submission that was rejected outright by a foreign regulatory body due to translation and terminology issues, which resulted in several million dollars in lost revenue.
The standard guaranteed delivery is a 5:00pm guarantee, meaning that your freight must be delivered by 5pm on the date of delivery you specify. The 5:00pm guarantee is the most common and most used guarantee. Another commonly used guarantee is the 12 Noon guarantee, where your freight must be delivered by 12 Noon on the specified date of delivery.
When you are shipping to a retailer that has strict delivery window requirements, or a MABD (Must Arrive By Date). Missing these delivery dates and / or times may result in chargebacks of around 3% of the value of the purchase order. So if an order valued at $50,000 was early or late, you’d pay a $1500 fine. Paying extra for guaranteed LTL shipping is a small investment.
Some will bury the transit time calculator deep within their website, when transit times are lengthy, choosing instead to focus on low cost, low claims ratio, etc. Either way, all LTL carriers have something in common as they do not include the day of pick up in their transit time calculations, nor do they include weekends or Holidays.
Similarly, if the delivery is required for an installation in new construction or as a repair or replacement. For example, if you are shipping a stainless steel fermentation tank to a new brewery, it needs to arrive when the construction team needs it so that it can be installed and not cause delays to their build-out schedule.