Deborah Edwards (asker) Feb 6, 2012:

Hi Katalin, you are right I made amistake. I should have selected Harlan's response. I will ask the moderator to rectify this situation.

Katalin Horváth McClure Feb 6, 2012:

So... So the conclusions are:
1. M/L stands for "maker layout".
2. It is best to leave as "M/L" in the translation.
I agree with both of these.

It just wasn't clear, because you closed the question with "no acceptable answer", while there was one that said "maker layout".

Deborah Edwards (asker) Feb 6, 2012:

Hi Katalin, sorry for my rushed explanation. Although the English is deceptive, "maker layout" is a system where an automaker compares past suppliers against one another (based on past 実績) to decide to whom they will award a supply contract. Hence Cinefil's reference: "トヨタの場合、具体的な発注に当たっては、「現行メーカー・レイアウト」と呼ばれる従来の納入実績のパターンをある程度尊重し、取引関係の継続性を確保しつつも、各サプライヤーに対する現状の総合評価を反映させた形で発注パターンを変化させることにより、協調と競争の微妙なバランスを取ろうと考えているようである。"In my translation, I preserved "M/L", but used "conduct M/L", "win the M/L" (which means, in effect, "win the order") etc.

Katalin Horváth McClure Feb 6, 2012:

??? Did you translate M/L in the quoted sentences as "to receive orders"?

Deborah Edwards (asker) Feb 5, 2012:

Hi all, based on the very helpful material provided by Cinefil, this seems to be a method of determining orders. Therefore, 受注獲得 means "to receive orders." Thanks so much for all your help!

Katalin Horváth McClure Feb 3, 2012:

Do you need to "translate" it, by the way? After all, it is an acronym (hopefully not an anagram), that supposedly comes from English, so why can't you just leave it as M/L? If the readers are specialists, in the industry, they would know what it means, wouldn't they?

Deborah Edwards (asker) Feb 3, 2012:

Hi Katalin, it is a shame you can't open Cinefil's document because it is an industry document (8 pages) written completely in Japanese. The only English in the document are a few English anagrams (3 or 4), including M/L. Therefore I think it is quite reliable. I agree with Harlan that "Maker layout" may in itself mean an agreement. Cinefil's document also contains the following heading: "RFQ から受注（ M/L ：Maker Lay-out) 獲得までの活動", which implies to me this means winning a contract. My hesitation with using "manufacturer license" is that a license implies permission to manufacturer a part etc., but the context here is an agreement (contract) to manufacture and supply and part. I feel there must be a fixed term for this terminology, but I am not sure what it is....

Katalin Horváth McClure Feb 3, 2012:

I cannot see that document When I try to open Cinefil's PDF, I get an error message about a font, and I see nothing but white space and dots. So, I cannot check how reliable that document is. In the sentence you quoted, manufacturing license makes sense to me, as that is something that could be "acquired" (獲得). In my interpretation they are saying that in order to acquire a manufacturing license (that is, the agreement to supply certain parts to another company) the degree of precision and the reliability matters a lot.

You said yourself "the text relates to autoparts suppliers bidding to win manufacturing/supply agreements", so I don't understand why "maker layout" would make more sense than "manufacturing license". There are plenty of documents on the web with questionable translations, sometimes one copied from the other. I would not rely on an unfinished Japanese-Chinese dictionary made by a student.

By the way, I could not find any reference to "maker layout" as a phrase, and honestly I have no idea what that would mean. But again, it may be one of those mysterious 専門用語 that does not make sense to anybody except those who invented it. ;-)

Deborah Edwards (asker) Feb 3, 2012:

Hi Katalin, thanks for your comment. The link provided by Cinefil states that M/L = "maker layout", and further down in the same document there is the following sentence:
M/L 獲得のためには見積り精度の高さ･信頼性が成否に大きく寄与する。部品価格、加工工
数等、直接製品価格に影響する情報のデータベースの信頼性は非常に重要である。
This sentence perfectly represents the context of the document I am translating (the text relates to autoparts suppliers bidding to win manufacturing/supply agreements). I am still trying to work out how to use "M/L" in all three contexts (I agree that the grammar doesn't seem to work well for the most obvious interpretation of the meaning, so am still trying to get my head around it)...

Katalin Horváth McClure Feb 3, 2012:

Layout? Debby, why do you say "layout" is more likely? It does not work in a phrase like 「A社にＭ／Ｌする」, because if it was "layout" (in terms of getting the layout done by somebody) it would be 「A社にＭ／Ｌをしてもらう」, right? To license to somebody would be Aにライセンスする, right?

Deborah Edwards (asker) Feb 3, 2012:

Many thanks, Cinefil! I also considered that it might be "manufacturing license" but I think "maker layout" is more likely. Only "maker layout" doesn't seem to appear frequently in Google in the automobile context (neither does "manufacturer layout"), so perhaps I should change it to "manufacturing layout"...