One of our customers faced a problem with their localisation workflow: The validation step was causing delays. Their project backlog was growing rapidly with 36% of translation jobs overdue and thousands of accumulated work-in-progress projects.
With so many incomplete projects and delayed market activities, the customer was keen to improve efficiency.
Validation is a common bottleneck, but it can be hard to quantify, track, and troubleshoot.
Are delays happening because the team is busy? Is one validator accepting too much work? Are some languages falling behind more than others? This challenge becomes especially complex in large decentralised setups without a dedicated owner.
To help solve customer challenges like the one above, LanguageWire has been adopting a data driven approach using Lean dashboards. Through this data, our Senior Operations Excellence Specialist Philip Philipsen noticed the customer was experiencing high job volumes and recurring delays. So, he took action and initiated an improvement project.
Before we get into what the data showed, and how the team improved efficiency, let’s first rewind a bit to understand why Philip was looking at that data in the first place, and where the dashboards came from.
Staying focused on what matters most
The reason Philip was looking at customer data that day (and the reason this data existed in the first place) was because of Lean.
Lean is an operational improvement framework that uses data, workflow visibility, and continuous improvement to solve problems at their root cause.
Over the past three years, LanguageWire has been embedding Lean principles into our operations. For example, by building dashboards that help visualise the customer’s localisation workflow and identify where delays or operational bottlenecks occur.
One of our talented experts Joanna Monika Nyk is behind a lot of the work behind implementing Lean. LanguageWire already had a strong value-focused and data-driven way of working. Her team built on that to formalise and strengthen that culture.
Lean is a way to develop operational maturity and it evolves through the everyday ways people collaborate, make decisions, and solve problems together. Over time, those behaviours shape how effectively an organisation can scale and adapt.
In Joanna’s words: “Lean helps us stay focused on what matters the most to us - customer value - and do so in a data-driven way instead of relying on assumptions.”
Finding the root cause of the validation bottleneck
So, what did the Lean dashboards reveal about the customer’s validation process efficiency problem?
The data showed that validators took an average of three days to accept jobs, but that each job was typically completed within five days once accepted.
Further investigation revealed exactly where the bottleneck happened, right down to which validators caused delays, which countries were falling behind, and who were taking on the brunt of the workload.
Knowing exactly what happens on the shop floor is the foundation of change. It can tell you where to set in, who to talk to, and how to redistribute work.
Another interesting data point: Most delays happened after a certain number of days. If a job was accepted before that point, it was more likely to be completed. Conversely, delays were more likely to happen after that cut-off point.
Quantifying the problem was an important step towards solving the problem, but what follows is even more crucial: How do you act on this knowledge in a structured way? Especially if you have a decentralised setup without clear ownership?
Based on these insights, LanguageWire worked with the customer to build a targeted action plan.
How we improved validation process efficiency by 21%
Figuring out how to act on the data was the second part of the challenge.
The customer's validation team consists of local marketing, product, or technical people who have their own full-time jobs. Validation is rarely their main priority. Delays are usually not caused by a lack of willingness, but by a lack of clarity or capacity.
The usual process involves sending validators automated reminders, hoping that will help them stay on top of validation tasks. This rarely works. Instead, validators need direct communication from and alignment with the colleagues who request their participation.
To support this process, the LanguageWire team uses a Validation Alignment Document, a framework that helps structure these conversations between customers, validators, and LanguageWire.
The document helps define roles, responsibilities, escalation paths, timelines, and expectations, so stakeholders are aware of all the various scenarios and outcomes. That way, they can make informed decisions no matter what the situation is.
The result is a more predictable validation process: Both customers, validators and LanguageWire are fully aligned on the validation process before it begins.
The data gave highly valuable context to these conversations. Knowing exactly where the bottlenecks happened allowed the customer to talk directly to the validators in question.
In some cases, they could reassign work away from validators who didn’t have capacity. In others, customers could rebalance expectations with validators who consistently held up the process.
Another solution was to implement a cancellation trigger. According to the data, delays were more likely to happen after a certain point. The cancellation trigger meant that jobs would simply be cancelled after that point. The customer was better off reordering the project later instead of building a massive backlog.
As a result, Process Lead Time (PLT) was reduced by 21%.
PLT is a key performance indicator that evaluates how efficiently a process is completed. It measures the overall efficiency of a process.
If the issue hadn’t been addressed, it could have caused an increasing backlog and operational complexity, scaling challenges with growing job volume, continued delays in delivery, reduced ability to meet demand, and ultimately higher operational costs.
Why this matters beyond one customer case
When complex organisations work together - as is often the case between global enterprises and localisation partners - operational maturity on both sides can directly influence the success of the partnership.
Lean helps organisations identify inefficiencies earlier and improve how teams work together across complex localisation setups.
Joanna sees LanguageWire’s Lean journey not only as a way to improve internal operations, but also as a way to become a stronger operational partner for customers.
“We turn process improvement into shared value for our customers using data, operational insights, dashboards, and workflow visibility. This transparency enables open dialogue, helps identify inefficiencies, and improves collaboration over time.”
This turns process improvement into a shared effort, where both LanguageWire and the customer continuously improve workflows together.
Turning validation challenges into valid improvements
How do you identify where problems occur inside a complex validation setup when responsibilities are distributed across multiple teams, languages, and stakeholders?
The answer lies in combining operational visibility with collaborative problem-solving.
As a localisation partner, LanguageWire can provide a broader workflow perspective through data, dashboards, and process insights, while the customer contributes expertise about their own teams, priorities, and internal processes.
The customer case explored in this article is a real example – showing how a Lean framework, data dashboards, and constructive stakeholder conversations reduced Process Lead Time by 21%.
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Consult an expertThis article is the May 2026 edition of Lost & found in translation, a monthly newsletter sharing insights, opinions, and reflections by real people who work in localisation. Subscribe to get notified when the next edition comes out.
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