About High Sierra Vending
High Sierra Vending is an automated vending machine operations company based in Nevada, USA. It provides various types of vending machines (coffee, snacks, etc.) to schools, restaurants and other businesses, to be used in locations such as airports, casinos, bars and hotels.
Customer requirement
The company had recently purchased and received several pizza vending machines from a manufacturer based in Southern China. However, the machines were delivered to the USA without any kind of operating instructions or user manual, and none of the staff at the company had any idea how to operate them.
The customer therefore contacted us to write, design, and produce an entire user manual in English for his vending machine and his operations team.
Challenges
- Geographical issues: The vending operations company is based in the USA, with a machine that only the manufacturer based in Southern China knows how to operate correctly.
- Communication issues: None of the engineers at the Chinese factory spoke any English.
- Lack of existing content: The manufacturer did not have any English content for the manual available whatsoever. Moreover, it did not have any good quality images of the machine and its various parts.
Strategy
After discussing with the client and our internal production team, it was concluded that there was only one real solution, which was only possible thanks to our unique attributes:
- Our in-house staff, made up of experienced native English and Chinese translators and technical writers
- Our presence in China
The proposed solution was for two members of our production team (one English and one Chinese), to travel from their Shanghai office to visit the manufacturer of the vending machine in Guangzhou to view the machines and gather all the information they needed to write up the user manual for their American client, which is what they did.
Upon arrival at the manufacturer’s factory, there was no reception area, and not a single employee spoke a word of English, so it was vital that we had a Chinese native with them to find the right person to speak to and arrange the viewing of the machine.
This was also the case when it came to viewing the machine. The machine’s head engineer did not speak any English, so our Chinese Project Manager, who is fluent in English, was able to explain to his English colleague what was being said by the engineer while he was walking them through the components, mechanisms and functions of the machine.
Our team made sure that all conversations were recorded, and that sufficient photos and video footage were taken, to equip them with the content they needed.
Production
After arriving back in Shanghai, our production team started work on the manual. Thanks to their experience of writing up other manuals, they split the content into clear, easy-to-read chapters, packed with photos they had taken during their visit.
After finishing a first draft, the team sent the manual to the client for review, and then after a few rounds of modifications and feedback from the client’s technical team, the content was validated. It was now time to work on the presentation of the manual.
Thanks to our in-house DTP and document layout service offering, the client did not need to look elsewhere to finalize his manual. He was able to liaise directly with our design team to obtain the exact layout, style, and format he was looking for, and any last minute changes and updates could be taken care of with a minimum of fuss.
Result
Thanks to our expertise and professionalism, the GM of the vending operations company now had a clear, concise, and comprehensive user manual for his team, enabling them to operate and maintain the vending machine that had previously been laying idle and useless, and in turn bring in valuable income for his company.