I have been looking through my files to find information about the cost of metrication. General Motors out-of-pocket expenses over the six-year changeover period (1973-1979) has been estimated at only $9 million. These costs turned out to be less than one percent of cost estimates that had been made in the mid-1960's. The change to metric allowed one GM division to examine its electric wire practices, Resizing and reduction of variety resulted in a cost avoidance of $1.6 million annually. Thus, the saving in this single division for a six-year period more than paid the corporate expense of metrication and the benefits will continue to be realized far into the future. In April 1979 a study by the Confederation of British Industry indicated that over 50% of production was in imperial; the costs of dual working are nearly 3% of sales; and the capital costs of metrication could be rcovered in two years. I can't lay my hands on my sources, but my memory is that the U.S. Department of Defense found that metric designs saved 5% in design time. A firm in Sheffield, England, that produced tooling to-order found that working in metric took 15% less design time.
