Dear Jim, Thanks for your notes. I'll give them some thought.
Cheers, Pat Naughtin on 2002/02/04 05.29, Jim Elwell at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > At 01:51 PM 2/2/2002 +1100, Pat Naughtin wrote: >> Could you elaborate on the 'financial benefit (s) in a reasonable time' that >> were relevant to your particular business. > > I wish I could answer this with lots of wonderful pro-metrication > "ammunition," but I cannot. In fact, I have been asked on a couple of > occasions to write an article for Metric Today about my company's > metrication efforts, but I have not done so because I am not sure I can say > much that will help the effort. > > There are numerous reasons why my company's metrication effort is not > particularly useful for showing the benefits of metrication. > > (1) We started metricating when we were a very small company (about five > employees, perhaps $800k of sales or 2,500 units in a year). This means > that we did not have a huge amount of training to do (three of the five > were technical employees), we did not have a huge inventory of parts and > drawings and specifications that needed conversion (hard or soft), and we > did not have a large customer base that we would irritate by changing > product specs. > > (2) We started metricating at a time we were switching from one product > line to another, and the older (non-metric) product line died within a > couple of years. > > (3) Our products are not particularly dimensional, in the sense of lumber > or pipe or steel or fasteners. Where dimensions are critical (connectors), > they are not within the purview of the user. When one of our terminals is > mounted in an instrument panel, it is always a made-to-order hole, and we > provide the mounting hardware. > > (4) Where dimensions do come into play (in the internal mechanics of our > products), most of it is entirely internal to QSI. It matters not to the > customer whether we mount a display with metric or colloquial fasteners, > since they neither see nor use the fasteners. > > (5) The electronics industry has always been somewhat more metric than > older industries, and has always been entirely metric in its fundamental > measures (e.g., volt, watt, amp, ohm). While many of the mechanical aspects > of electronic components has been colloquial (e.g., the ubiquitous 0.1" pin > spacing), it is a very global industry, and metric mechanicals started > creeping into electronic design at least 15 years ago. Today component and > connector pin spacings are commonly metric (1 mm, 0.5 mm, etc.). Example: > the "D" connector used on PCs is a horrendous connector (0.109" x 0.112" > pin spacings, if memory serves), whereas the more recent USB connector was > designed to hard metric dimensions (although the platings are still > specified in microinches). > > > In summary, I cannot point to substantial short-term savings by converting > to metric. There were no substantial costs, either, but QSI is not a good > example of where metricating saved us a lot of money. > > Jim Elwell >
