LEAN Initiative—Translation and Language Preferences In Professional Services Contracting

An enhancement to the Centralized Professional Services System (CPSS) ePortal is being developed that will allow client departments to identify the overall language preference for a particular solicitation based on the language preferences pre-identified by suppliers.

Background

In consultation with Official Languages, the Professional Services (PS) Steering Committee from Services and Technology Acquisition Management Sector (STAMS) began developing this enhancement in the hopes of reducing the time and cost expended by client departments in the constant translation and quality assurance of their solicitation documents.

The anticipated benefits of this enhancement are a reduction of workload for the Translation Bureau, allowing it to concentrate on other, urgently required translations and provide a quicker turnaround time; an acceleration in the solicitation process; a reduction in translation costs, and reduced time spent by the requester/client on quality assurance of translated documents.

This new functionality does not replace the requirement to accommodate any translation request made by a pre-qualified supplier at any time during the solicitation process, should such a request be made.

Process

After running their search and selecting the pre-qualified suppliers of their choice, or (depending on the method of supply) after having the system randomly selected pre-qualified suppliers, client department users will be presented with the overall communication language preference for the anticipated solicitation. Language preference information for companies cannot be viewed before the final solicitation invitees have been selected. In cases where all pre-qualified suppliers selected have indicated the same (unilingual) language preference, client departments will be informed or their ability to proceed without the translation of solicitation documents.Footnote *

To ensure that solicitation documents are submitted to the suppliers in the language of their choice, suppliers will have the option to change the language preference for any region/metropolitan area for each method of supply. This option will be available to suppliers by logging into the CPSS ePortal at any time after being awarded a supply arrangement or standing offer.

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