The delay in Boeing’s “787 Dreamliner project” has been widely reported. Now an article in The Seattle Times has given rise to speculation about a link between Boeing’s problems and the units of measurement used in the US.
Dominic Gates, in an article in the Seattle Times on 1 November 2007, commented on the reasons given by the company for the six month delay on the 787 project. However, the US “Go Metric!” Forum took issue with both Mr Gates and Boeing’s management, suggesting that some of the problems could have been caused by the use of “cumbersome old units” http://gometric.us/jforum/posts/list/108.page
Others have joined in the discussion. Pat Naughtin, who was guest speaker at UKMA’s Annual Conference in July, has written to The Seattle Times. He points out how metrication of the motor vehicle industry worldwide has simplified the creation of the international supply chain, instancing production of components for Ford in his home town of Geelong in Australia. Pat’s thoughts on the costs of non-metrication are set out on his web site: http://www.metricationmatters.com/articles.
Should the problems at Boeing concern us in the UK? Possibly not. Although there are UK businesses which are sub-contractors for “pound-inch” aerospace companies in North America, the UK also has a major stake in the Airbus project, the metric rival to the 787. Nevertheless, Boeing must now reconcile the high costs of production at home with the difficulties it has discovered of moving production abroad. The outcome will certainly be of interest, if not concern, to us in the UK.
Metric Views 
I wrote this to Dominic Gates;
2007-11-07
Mr. Gates,
I read your article with interest and find it difficult to believe that Boeing’s world-wide partners (See http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/multimedia/news/business/building-the-dreamliner/boeing-787.html) are not being able build the dreamliner according to Boeing’s design. Maybe Boeing is the problem and not the world-wide suppliers.
Lets get real here. Boeing still tries to build planes as if they were in the 19-th century, using ancient units of measurements that no one in the world has any understanding of. If Boeing sends these world-wide companies drawings in non-SI units it is perfectly understandable that they can’t build the parts to Boeing’s specs. If you haven’t a clue as to what an inch is you are not going to be able to build something in inches.
It is really about time that Boeing moved into the 21-st century and started using the units of measure that the whole world uses instead of trying to be different. The attitude of arrogance is going to cost Boeing big time.
Regards,
Dan
His response back was:
Who are you? Are you in the aviation world? Where do you live and what do you do for a living?
I wonder if he got bombarded by similar letters.
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Wasn’t Concorde built using imperial units despite the face that staunchly-metric France made up one half of the partnership?
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My son has been working on producing some very small sub-assemblies (3rd tier subcontractor) for Boeing for the new 787 Dreamliner. His company are having to work in imperial for Boeing, which is very strange for them – they do almost all of their work for the automotive industry, which of course is exclusively metric world wide (including the US, where he does a lot of his work). He not sure whether there is any basis to this, but he thinks that the well publicised 6 months 787 delays due to lack of fasteners availability could be due to the fact that all the fasteners are imperial, and increasingly hard to get. He mentioned that in the work he was doing, he had to source the imperial fasteners from the US, as they were unobtainable elsewhere, which caused his company some delays in delivering the first assemblies, although they were still within schedule.
At the moment, it is mostly speculation, but if you compound the imperial fasteners problem throughout the world, this could be the main reason why the 787 is very late. Boeing is ‘proud’ to work in imperial, so it is not going to admit this publicly. Personally, if I were Boeing, I would be ashamed, not proud, to be working in a mediaeval measuring system for what is supposed to be a state of the art aircraft.
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According to the US metrication act of 1975 section 205b,
It is therefore the declared policy of the United States–
(1) to designate the metric system of measurement as the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce;
(2) to require that each Federal agency, by a date certain and to the extent economically feasible by the end of the fiscal year 1992, use the metric system of measurement in its procurements, grants, and other business-related activities, except to the extent that such use is impractical or is likely to cause significant inefficiencies or loss of markets to United States firms, such as when foreign competitors are producing competing products in non- metric units;
(3) to seek out ways to increase understanding of the metric system of measurement through educational information and guidance and in Government publications; and
(4) to permit the continued use of traditional systems of weights and measures in non-business activities.
If Boeing wish to use imperial measures they need to decide whether they are a non-business activity, or just disloyal to the democratically elected US government.
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Number of misconceptions. Note: I’m not defending the use of US units, but if you don’t understand the landscape, then it’s easy to laugh when you should instead cry. I would be in favor of a metric calendar and metric clock, too, as long as it’s better than the ones the French abandoned back then.
(1) US units are not “Imperial” in the common sense of Britain’s 19th century third empire (India and Africa). They instead derive from Britain’s 18th century second empire (North America and Caribbean). Although the length units are equivalent, the liquid units and dry volume units are often widely divergent from the Imperial units. Imperial units were standardized after the US became independent, and the US standardized its own units separately from Britain.
(2) No disloyalty involved. Mike is just being funny. The controlling clause is “except to the extent that such use is impractical,” which is a loophole a mile (or approximately 1.6 kilometers) wide. It’s the same principle that allows US states to declare a budget emergency every year and override various budgeting restrictions continually so that they’ve never been enforced. Go find an average American on the street, and 90% of the time, they can’t think metric except to the extent of a 2-liter bottle of cola. Canadians find this very amusing every time they visit.
(3) US dominance in aviation has led to delayed metrication. Flight levels are given in hundreds of feet to this day in most of the world, including in metric western Europe. (Not Russia, though. Thank God, or at least Marx, for the Soviet Union?) US insularity in defense spending has also delayed the impact of Airbus, while the auto industry’s troubles with Japanese and German competition sped up their metrication. There are other worldwide industries where US units are entrenched, such as publishing: 12-point font = 1/6 of an inch, even if you print stuff out on A paper sizes.
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Historian,
The font example is actually quite interesting, because it historically reflected the size of the block on which the type was carved. It doesn’t reflect the actual character height of the type. Two fonts of different faces, but the same nominal ‘point size’ can be very different in height of actual characters, and even of spaced text.
The modern desktop publishing point of 1/72 of an inch was only fixed in the 1980s and is simply a rounding of the previous standard of 1/72.27 inches, to make it more amenable to computer software. (This comes from Adobe’s PostScript; earlier rendering software such as the TeX system use the older standard).
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_(typography).
However, I think this may be a unit so well entrenched in its field that it won’t be amenable to metrication. It’s rare that anyone actually wants to know how many lines of text of a given point size fit onto a sheet of paper in modern desktop publishing; changing the typeface will cause text to reflow in any case as the width of the characters, and the spacing between them, is different for each face (with rare examples where one font has been unnaturally forced into the metrics of another, e.g. Monotype Grotesque was distorted into Helvetica’s character sizes to produce Arial).
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I work in the aerospace industry as a lowly designer.
From my knot hole, I can say that it would take millions upon millions of dollars (if not more) to convert to metric fasteners for airplane design.
It’s not a matter of swapping out the standard fastener with similar size metric fasteners (if they exists). Each standard fastener type and size has an enormous amount of testing, documenting and certifying data and paperwork that come along with them. Counting all the rivet, bolts, screws and mating part types that are used, the cost of converting over may even dwarf the US deficit!
Then go ask the airlines if they are willing to live with two sets of system (standard for the older airplanes and metric for the new airplanes) you may not be able to sell them a metric airplane ever.
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May I simply suggest that IF that were true, no airline would even consider operating a mix of Airbus and Boeing aircraft.
I’m sure Boeing would prefer that, but that simply isn’t the case.
I would suggest that if Boeing wants to stick to US Customary, it should stick entirely to US suppliers. I worked in the automobile industry. The big reason we converted to metric in the 70’s was our own foreign operations and the worldwide supply base it opened to us.
Expecting people who don’t understand Customary units (and that includes EVERYONE but the US, because Imperial is different) to successfully manufacture in Customary, meet QC in Customary, etc, is pretty naive and probably frought with folly. Outsourcing and Customary just DON’T go together, not well, anyway.
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“Then go ask the airlines if they are willing to live with two sets of system (standard for the older airplanes and metric for the new airplanes) you may not be able to sell them a metric airplane ever.”
As Qantas flies both Airbus and Boeing planes http://www.qantas.com.au/freight/dyn/capacity/capacity I don’t think that this problem is insuperable.
Also, though I am no technician, if Airbus can produce aircraft with metric components, then the “testing, documenting and certifying data and paperwork that come along with” the components must be at least partly in place.
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CATIA — you don’t swap mid design, but instead, on new aircraft. The 747-8 would remain imperial, as much of the design is a holdover from the 747-1..400. On the other hand, the 787 should have been designed in metric. New fuselage (even the materials are new!), new engines, new avionics, new interior, new landing gears …… you don’t re-certify something you have never certified before. You certify it for the first time, and doing it in metric takes the same amount of time as doing it in imperial.
In fact you probably drive costs down. Fasteners on the A350 are likely to be the same size as those on the 787. So, suppliers can concentrate on one line instead of two.
Source: I work in the Aerospace industry as an engineer who has worked in both metric and imperial units.
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Dear U.S. Metric Fans,
You would not believe, but the majority of the structural threaded fasteners (bolts, screws, nuts) in the Airbus are in U.S customary dimensional units (a.k.a. “inches”).
Surprised?
(The Editor comments:
In 1949, Canada, the UK and the US adopted the inch-based Unified Thread Standard (UTS), which was intended to replace, among others, the BS Whitworth and the US Sellers threads. A driver of this change was the problem resulting from lack of interchangeability of equipment among the Allies in the WW2. ISO metric threads have now replaced Unified in most industries around the world, but it would appear that US dominance of the aerospace industry has ensured that Unified maintains a presence there.)
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With America’s inch dominated industrial base steadily shrinking and metric countries output rising, the future for Americans does not look all that bright. Confirming this scenario is the prediction that a metric hating Republican President will do his “best” to perpetuate American “values” medieval measurements included. Maybe the land of the free has to hit rock bottom before it sees the errors of its ways? Hindsight will tell them eventually where they went wrong, but as so often in human affairs, by then it will be too late.
For anyone interested here is my original post to the Seattle Times no longer accessible on this link:
http://gometric.us/jforum/posts/list/108.page
In reply to Dominic Gates article in the Seattle Times on 1 November 2007.
“This is an interesting article for one reason only; Boeing blames everybody else, but its management for the initial 6 months delay. Its by now replaced Vice President Bair asserts that some international suppliers contracted to design and manufacture sections for the Dreamliner are incapable of doing it. “They just could not do what we thought they could, said Bair. Some of the major airframe partners on the Dreamliner have performed so poorly that Boeing won’t probably use them on future programs, he said”.
What extraordinary statements to make! Did they not vet these companies properly before entrusting them with such demanding work? If not, who is to blame? The major metric companies, Alenia of Italy; Mitsubishi, Fuji and Kawasaki of Japan chosen to do this work are no backyard operators and know what they are doing.
Taking that into account one cannot help but think how much cumbersome old units contributed to this delay? One can well imagine metric designers and engineers struggling with units they have no feel for nor make sense to people used to simple mm.
If this is the case, Boeing blew the first billion dollars just to learn the obvious truth that metric users find medieval units cumbersome to work with. This is truly a high price to pay for obstinacy/arrogance.
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Difference between quantities of measuring units is easily overcoming by the appropriate coefficient, for example: 1 inch = 25.4 mm. and it’s OK. But what about derived units, for example “miles per hour”? and could it be considered as unit of speed? From school’s physics, we know that the speed is derivative of distance by the time. so it would be measured in units such mile in a hour (mile/hour). Otherwise we can try to subvert entire mathematics and physics trying to find a limit of distance per time when the time tends to zero but it is obvious that this attempt will result zero and therefore such concept has no meaning or utility, the same consideration may be done on other units: “gallon per minute”, “revolutions per minutes” and so on. These units can result confusing. Another strange thing: the units of measure would be used to measure things or quantities and not viceversa, for example, in metric system the pitch of threads are measured in millimeters. English systems the thread’s pitch are used to measure one inch: threads per inch. So, some times inch is used to measure and some times to be measured.
The systems of measure used in twenty-first century should be more coherent and precise at least in their principles.
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The post from gela@ effectively makes the point (as UKMA have often said) that the country needs to adopt and use a single coherent system of measurement (that is truly a system, namely, the SI.
One can only imagine how much numeracy would improve in the UK if the metric muddle were finally resolved in favour of pure SI.
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In the wake of the problems with the 787, resulting in the grounding of the whole fleet, the Guardian last week had this to say on outsourcing:
‘The technological leap was always likely to cause teething issues. But these were exacerbated by Boeing’s decision to massively increase the percentage of parts it sourced from outside contractors. The wing tips were made in Korea, the cabin lighting in Germany, cargo doors in Sweden, escape slides in New Jersey, landing gear in France.
The plan backfired. Outsourcing parts led to three years of delays. Parts didn’t fit together properly. Shims used to bridge small parts weren’t attached correctly. Many aircraft had to have their tails extensively reworked. The company ended up buying some suppliers, to take their business back in house. All new projects, especially ones as ambitious as the Dreamliner, face teething issues but the 787’s woes continued to mount. Unions blame the company’s reliance on outsourcing.
Bill Dugovich, communications director at SPEEA, the professional aerospace union, said his members had first voiced their concerns in 2002. “Outsourcing in general lengthens supply lines, creates problems with language and culture and is extremely hard to coordinate. You have seen a plethora of problems at Boeing. Things get outsourced then they have to come back to Boeing to get fixed,” he said.’
The Guardian article does not comment on the outsourcing of pound-inch parts to metric companies, but reading between the lines of the article you can see that it could be part of the problem.
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@derekp:
Indeed it is. The key sentence is: “Parts didn’t fit together properly.” All parts need a tolerance of course, and it is assumed that tolerances will average out – some parts slightly greater than specified, some slightly less.
The problems come when you, say, are drilling rivet holes specified in inch spacing on a machine that is dimensioned in metric units. You can come very close to the inch spacing (and within tolerance), but not exact. In this situation all the slight innacuracies, instead of averaging out, become cumulative, until by the last rivet you are lucky if the holes even begin to correspond with the holes in the part to be attached, which might have been machined on an inch-based tool. How Boeing didn’t even see this coming boggles the mind, and makes me wonder at their level of technical competence (I say this slightly tounge-in-cheek, as next month I’m on BA 777s to Toronto and back).
Latest reports show that Boeing will take at least 1100 787 sales just to break even (and some experts are saying it could be as high as 2000). Now compare Boeing’s issues with how Airbus assembles aircraft. Many components, made in any number of different factories in many countries (all wings for example made in UK), shipped to Toulouse or wherever (Airbus now has prime assembly parts in Germany as as France), and all mating together perfectly. This can only be achieved when all players are using the same design language – metric. The first complete airframe for the A350 (Airbus answer to the 787) has been rolled out (six months behind schedule, but for reasons that are not measurement related, as was the case for the 787), and will fly later this year. The A350 was projected to be six years behind the 787 on entry into service – now it looks to be more like three.
Even the giant A380 made its maiden flight more or less on schedule, its later manufactoring problems being more to do with incorrect assemby diagrams for the complex wiring harnesses between different modules, which then didn’t mate up (but all were accurate according to the assembly diagram each module was built to, and the prime fuselage modules to which the harnesses were attached did mate perfectly).
Will America (and especially Boeing) learn from this and convert to the world’s standard measurement system, SI? Probably not. They seem to be a bit like the UK DfT and the country’s road signs – head buried firmly in the sand, and don’t let any facts get in the way of a flawed and stubborn philosophy.
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The last two comments from Derek and John raise an interesting point.
The Unions are bound to argue against outsourcing because it threatens jobs for their members.
So does that mean they will also oppose anything that makes it more viable technically? i.e. US metrication?
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@PhilH,
More generally, unions have pretty much opposed metrication. In some industries, workers must provide their own tools, so this is partially understandable. One union that didn’t oppose it much was the UAW. Automotive does not permit (moreless require) workers to bring tools into the plant; they must use company-provided tools.
Small business owners generally oppose metrication too as they primarily see costs, not chances for increased profit. Most union members vote Democratic, most small business owners vote Republican. so neither party is too excited about embracing metrication. If we could just get the NRA excited about metrication, we’d be metric. Every politician listens to them.
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@philh:
I think Boeing will have to bite this bullet eventually, simply because all its future programs are/will be heavily dependent on sales in Japan – it has over 80% of the Japanese market (Japanese airlines were the first in the world to place orders for the 787), and Airbus barely gets a look-in. The quid pro quo for that is that something like 40% of the 787 comes from Japan. I can’t see Boeing wanting to risk that level of market penetration by yanking manufacture back in-house. Even the unions should be able to see that. In which case, Boeing’s measurement problems are not going to go away any time soon.
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“Now we are seeing British standard Chinese, American standard Chinese and Chinese metric thread forms. It’s all becoming a bit of a farce. I have A/F metrics Metric headed BSF fasteners these days.”
So long as the manufacturer can obtain the fasteners for production and maintenance, does it really matter in the aircraft industry what thread form they are so long as they work for the purpose they are used for? Metric thread forms are definitely not the be all and end all of engineering; it’s just a measurement system based on the number 10. Yet when you look at the thread angles you find that this is not the case – the angles are those best found to do the job and not fail.
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Hey, I think your website might be having browser compatibility issues.
When I look at your blog site in Ie, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping.
I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, terrific blog!
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Hi, thanks for this, I’ll pass this on!
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@David,
Some years ago I encountered inch threaded screws with a metric head. The fasteners came from China. I think this is a great idea to do this as it eliminates the need for non-metric tools. One tool set for all.
Also, for all new designs ISO metric fasteners must be the norm and inch sizes should be phased out. Since it will take time, inch fasteners with a metric head would be produced for the time being. Inch fasteners should also be given a metric description, using an I designator instead of the usual M. Thus a 1/4-20 would be designated as I6.3 x 1.27, but with a standard rounded metric length, say 20 mm as an example.
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We had this pseudo Imperial metric hybrid mish-mash of fasteners in UK at the start of the metric era back in the 1970’s I guess. A big issue arises with this as it is quite difficult to tell the difference between some metric and coarse unified threads. Unified fixings were (are) identified by the interlocking circles on one of the hex faces, metric usually by ‘M’ on the head of bolts, but this is unreliable and confusing, it does not work on tapped holes nor fixed studs for example. I am not sure which way round this works, but fitting a 3/8 or 5/16 UNC bolts into a tapped metric hole (or vice versa) is easy to do and extremely dangerous. I believe this was the cause of an aircraft window blow out many years ago now.
I thought this practice had died out years ago. Once again we have the obstinacy of one very large country putting the whole world at risk. Far better to just use the world standard metric threads. I went through this ‘almost fits’ problem once again only two weeks ago. I do not find it at all amusing and at my time of life it is expensive, unnecessarily complicated and time consuming. In this particular case I ‘assumed’ (being in UK) a tapped thread was 16 mm, it turned out to be (probably) 5/8″ so ‘probably’ an other American import. Thank you USA.
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@ Daniel Jackson 2018-10-13 at 13:46
You say: – “Inch fasteners should also be given a metric description, using an I designator instead of the usual M. Thus a 1/4-20 would be designated as I6.3 x 1.27, but with a standard rounded metric length, say 20 mm as an example”.
If only! A perfect solution to a huge problem.
Firstly the UK powers that be (DfTI, DTI or whoever it is) do not recognise this as a problem, I have been there and have the official yellow letters. To quote the phrase “there are no plans to change the system”. What B .. system?
Here in UK if we buy an Imperial roller bearing it will have a precise metric designation with no Imperial, likewise a rotary saw blade or grinding wheel, that is as it needs to be as the professional suppliers know and understand the problems.
If we buy nuts and bolts they will be i.e. M8 x 50 (3/8″ x 2″) which is totally meaningless, which are they? The suppliers do not even accept that a problem exists. The nuts fit the bolts so what is the problem? The problem is that a nuts and bolts have a technical specification which has to be met, they cannot be both at the same time.
The problem is one of mindset and (lack of) technical understanding, aided by a totally lackadaisical government.
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Back in 1948 – 1949 when I was in the the second class, I first learned that the Metric System existed. I tucked that fact into the back of my mind and, as I grew older, came across Metric items in the news from time to time. As I recall, it was 1951 when India decided to go Metric and I believed if they could do it, we (the United States) most certainly could do it. And I believe their law was to do it in 10 years.
A few pieces of Metric legislation were passed over the years until the ‘Omnibus Trades of 1988’ signed, excitedly, by President Reagan came into being. But like everything else that they touch, the democrats screwed up a ‘soup sandwich’ because they listened to the bone headed lobbyists. I believe that this bill was worked for two years before it passed Congress; 1987 – 1988. The lobbyists said, ‘Don’t make it mandatory, don’t make it mandatory, don’t make it mandatory. Industry will balk at it.’ Hey stupid, who do you think is pressing the United States to get 100 % SI Metric?? It IS INDUSTRY!!’
Changing a national system of weights and measures is a MAJOR undertaking! It is NOT something to be trifled with nor lightly addressed. Like the EU did when it converted and like the UK when it converted included Australia, New Zealand and, I believe a few other countries, it of necessity HAD TO BE MANDATORY or a nation gets balled up in the mess that the United States finds itself; some 65 % SI Metric and 35 % 6 th century, botched, modified British System that NO ONE with a logical mind anywhere in the world wants anything to do with it. The United States has been screwing around for 31 years nine months in 2020 June just to get 65% Metric. And once again, it was the democrats who screwed up the conversion. And it was jimmy carter who screwed up the Metrication Act of 1976 that was to have put us SI Metric on ALL of our road and highways. President Ford, again excitedly, signed the legislation in 1977 January and handed it off to carter to implement in a 90 day period from 1 July to 30 September with ALL of the old signs removed and nothing but SI Metric installed in their place; 90 days and it would have been over!! But he had his Secretary of Transportation come to him in 1977 and again in 1978 crying that 2 000 000 people had written each time complaining that they didn’t want to change, < 1.00 %. And so he chose to not implement. Sorry, he DID NOT have the authority to do so and had he implemented as he was legally bound to do, this nation would have been significantly more than 65 % down the 'road' toward full 100 % Metrication!
Something that far too many people fail to recognize is that a system of weights and measures is not for the common man, it for INDUSTRY. It may be the common man who runs industry, but it is industry that makes or breaks a nation. GET OVER IT AMERICA! THE WORLD RUNS ON THE SI METRIC SYSTEM!!
As to the conversion cost, GM in 1982 realized that it had cost them 1 % to 'Go Metric' of what they had thought.
The U.S. Weather Service, NASA, and NOAA are ALL 100 % SI Meteric and have been for at least 35 years. And NO, we didn't go to the Moon on the 6 th century modified British System; ALL of the calculations were SI METRIC. It was only the read out for the crew that was 6 th century, modified, British System. Ask NASA…….
I was in aerospace for almost 43 years working some military satellite programs. Others and I were busy making all kinds of technical changes in the specs to make them SI Metric and IT WORKED!! Most of these programs now are virtually 100 % SI METRIC. Why dink around with a cumbersome, awkward, archaic system that makes no sense whatsoever?? Too much room for error. To wit; Lockheed sending a $2 billion Martian package out who knows where in space when it handed off 6 th century orbital data to NASA when they KNEW that NASA was all SI METRIC – Go figure???
We came back from Deutschland after a nine year special DOD assignment with a brand spanking new 1985 300 TDT Benz with a Metric speedometer and never got so much as a 'What's this?' when Customs saw it and when I registered it in California. For me, I think SI Metric no matter what the road sign indicates and for every thing else as well.
U.S. corporations are hanging themselves because the longer they wait to convert the more it will cost them; and they WILL CONVERT!!
I laugh when I consider that Benz bought Peterbilt or one of the other truck tractor manufacturers, converted them SI Metric, and sold it back to an American concern……. All of the other tractor manufacturers are SI Metric as well. Now just get the trailers all SI Metric. Oh, the '53 foot' trailers are actually 16 m!! Actually 15 cm longer, but that doesn't hurt.
And another point, because our students aren't familiar with the SI Metric System, the American kids rank 42 nd or 47 th in the world on the annual world achievement exams. And it is the dumb democrat instructors who don't want to teach them the SI Metric System. It was democrat Senator Pell (RI) who was an ardent pusher of the SI Metric System before he died. Too bad we don't have an ardent Republican SI supporter. And, jimmy, most of your Navy ships today are being built 100 % SI Metric….
It is pathetic that what is supposed to be the most technically advanced nation in the world is so very lacking in this very important aspect. Our kids are suffering because of it. At this juncture, we should be able to make that last 35 % conversion in five years MAX!! MANDATORY!!
I may be one person, but I AM ONE PERSON and I AM HARD OVER 100 % SI METRIC!!! Come on America, get off the dime. Oh yes, our plywood is all SI Metric thicknesses. Home Depot has its plywood so marked; what's the matter with Lowe's??
Boeing, you build incredible airliners, but you’re hanging yourselves. Make the conversion to SI METRIC – 100 %. You’ll NEVER be sorry that you did!! It is a huge step, but one that will pay you GINORMOUS benefits!! The pain is only temporary. Don’t procrastinate any longer; you can’t afford to wait. Your product is too valuable to wait….
Thank you much.
John R. Grant, U.S. Metric Association.
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John R. Grant:
Thank you for that incredible insight. I am totally convinced that it is the US that is holding the UK back on road signs. Once the US converts, there will be nothing for the Luddites in the UK to hang on to.
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John R Grant,
It is pretty much typical American to take apolitical side and blame the other party for not completing metrication. In fact both sides are the problem. The republicans and democrats are two sides of the same coin. Like in the Wizard of Oz, all the public sees is the face on the wall, when in reality the real power is the man behind the curtain controlling everything to his whim. This type of diversion and division is the downfall of the US.
Industry is both the problem and the solution. Whereas the large, multinational companies are pro-metric, the small ma & pa companies are not. They make the most noise. In the US, it is everyone for themselves instead what works best for all of us. A nation divided strongly against itself. The large multinational companies could be the force to push the smaller companies to metric, but instead choose to just outsource from metric companies abroad if the local companies are resistant.
Sometimes the local companies complain that a multinational is bypassing them by going overseas and instead the multinational for good public relations does some business with local companies, allowing the local companies to convert drawings and produce the product in EEU (Evil Empire Units).
Some companies don’t want to appear as anti-American if they shun a business for not using metric units or component parts. The only way to resolve this issue is for the large companies and government to get together to publicly announce that metric is pro-American and good for business and jobs. Another issue in this is the media has taken the side of the metric opposers. Big business needs put pressure on the media to come over to the their side by threatening to withhold gigadollars of advertising money away from any media outlet that opposes metrication.
Some might find this article of interest. But unfortunately it falls mostly on deaf ears.
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2020/06/07/thad-box-moving-metric/
I’m afraid though the US won’t metricate until they are officially no longer in first place as the world’s top economy. China put forth a 10 year plan in 2015 that they will be the top nation by 2025. They are well on their way to reaching their goal. The US is resisting their attempts but when China does become #1 nation in the world, only after that will metrication have a chance of succeeding.
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@Daniel Jackson
Heavens, maybe a China as the top economy will induce “Global Britain” to finally finish metricating! 🙂
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@ John R. Grant – PREACH IT BROTHER! I have the opportunity to present a case for further US metrication on (of all dates!) 2020/10/10 at 10:00am with Senator David Perdue of Georgia. I will use your most excellent and compelling micro-manifesto as evidence as to the importance of SI in America.
Thank you!
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