SME universe | Molding plastic in French

The Quebec plastics industry is adopting a common lexicon in French, which will have beneficial effects even in productivity.

A carrot is not a vegetable.

In the plastics industry, it is more a question of “plastic waste which forms at each cycle in the injection channel of the tool”.

In English : sprue.

This is what we learn from the dictionary of plastics being developed by Alliance Polymères Québec – a group of companies in the plastics, composite materials and mold and tool manufacturing sector.

In the fall of 2020, the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) informed Polymères Québec of the existence of its program to promote French, one of the components of which aims to promote knowledge and use of French terminology specific to a field of activity.

“I’m going to be honest with you, it’s not something that we were watching,” said Simon Chrétien, CEO of the Alliance. We are heavily involved in the development of sales and markets, innovation, protection of the environment. French is not something we had on the radar. ”

The board of directors of the organization, mainly made up of companies, however recognized the interest of the approach.

“Beyond the language, it brings other advantages,” he explains. To be able to standardize terminologies, to be able to equip companies with adequate communication tools in French, to have a communication platform in French, all of this creates a host of opportunities. It was interesting and we built a project that was approved with interest by the Office. ”

A two-year agreement was signed in January 2021, with a grant of $ 300,000 for a project costing a total of $ 400,000.

Polymères Québec retained the services of a technical vocabulary specialist and a translator-reviser who set about developing a lexicon of 500 terms.

Almost a year later, 150 definitions have been written.

Some 350 more are to come.

“We have chosen terms that are used frequently in the industry and that will serve the greatest number of users. These are also terms that are often used in their English version, ”explains Simon Chrétien.

The organization favored terms that were not already included in the OQLF’s Large Terminological Dictionary.

“Not only is it a tool that we will distribute and make accessible to businesses via our communication tools, but the definitions will also be sent to the OQLF to improve its dictionary, with the English equivalents and illustrations”, says- he.

Companies in the sector are called upon to revise the nomenclature and provide their comments throughout the project, to ensure that the lexicon corresponds to their reality.

Culture change

The second part of the project provides for the establishment of a communication platform in French in order to create a “kind of social network” for the Quebec plastics industry.

It will offer companies templates for documents and work tools in French.

This project “will help standardize the terminology used, especially since there is an increasing number of immigrant workers in the industry,” notes the director general.

A uniform and recognized vocabulary “should facilitate the work and in some way improve the productivity of the company, by spreading the right terms and making it easier to understand”.

In their mid-state, the platform and its dictionary are being tested by small groups of industry people, with the goal of launching in September 2022.

It remains to be seen how the initiative will be received by the main stakeholders.

“If the companies that are members of the board of directors have accepted the project, it is because there is an interest,” says Simon Chrétien. But I won’t hide from you that they are not saying that this is what will save our industry. However, they see it in a positive light. We are creating a tool that will last and that will gradually change paradigms, change culture, change ways of doing things. It is a long term investment. ”

Finally, let us underline that thixotropy is the “decrease in the apparent viscosity over time, under the effect of the shear stress, followed by a gradual recovery after the stress has been removed”.

This dictionary will undoubtedly be useful.

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The number

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