on 7/10/03 2:26 PM, John S. Ward at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hi Pat and Phil, > > Thanks for your thoughtful replies, they are quite reassuring. This gives me > some information to keep in mind for the next time I get the chance to talk > to a higher level NASA director. If the auto industry went metric because it > made good business sense, then it probably makes good business sense for NASA > to follow their model. I already can see how true this would be for my own > work.
Dear John, The following may help to inform your discussion, 'the next time (you) get the chance to talk to a higher level NASA director'. All the big car makers have made considerable savings by converting to SI. Their initial costs were quickly covered and there have been ongoing savings ever since. The decision to convert to metric measures was made in the mid 1970s when some engineers realised that the US Automobile industry had, in fact, dug itself into a non-competitive hole, through its use of old fashioned units. These engineers noticed that Japanese manufacturers, using metric measures, were building � inclusive of transport to the US � cars that they estimated as $800 cheaper per unit. Naturally, there was vigorous resistance to metrication. The most common argument referred to the idea that metrication would cost many millions. Yet during and after the event the industry found that costs had been relatively small especially when they considered that their costs were easily covered by their continuing savings. Once the metrication decision was made, many engineers realised that metrication was an opportunity rather than a threat, and they used the metrication opportunity to rethink and to redesign many components and many processes. One of the biggest savings came from reduced inventories. There proved to be many opportunities to reduce costs in such areas as rationalisation of fastening and wiring systems. As one example, General Motors reported that they estimated that converting to metric would entail considerable expense but, after conversion, they were surprised to find they had actually saved money. This was mostly due to the reduction of the number of sizes of wire, nuts and bolts that they had to stock, and the lower stock levels associated with it; and those savings are on-going. At the time, I heard a story that General Motors had set up a team to monitor their metrication costs so that they could lobby the government to claim for their costs; they soon realised that the cost of running the monitoring team was much greater than any metrication costs, so they disbanded the team. Sadly, the automotive industry has kept their metrication to themselves. When it comes to communicating with the public it seems that they are keeping SI under the bonnet � they still speak in old units. The speedometer has mph, the odometer has ml, and engine displacement volumes are converted back to cubic inches. Notice that this is at the journalism end of the automotive business � not the engineering end. Basically, you could say that the automotive engineers have a measurement policy � and they stick to it � but they don't tell anyone about it. You could compare, and contrast, the experience of the automotive industry with the oil industry where they appear not to have a measurement policy at all. None of them have clearly adopted the International System of Units (SI), although they are moving (slowly) in that direction. Recently, to check on oil company measurement policies, I read several annual reports of major multinational oil companies. All of them revelled in a true mishmash of units. They face some interesting conversions when they attempt to accommodate their strange mixture of units to write their annual reports. They measured altitude and depth in feet and metres; surfaces in acres, hectares, square kilometres and square miles; production of oil in barrels (a volume measure) � with a metric equivalent in tonnes (a mass measure). Production of gas was in cubic feet (with an equivalent in cubic metres) and production of coal was given in tonnes. The capacity of their tankers was reported in deadweight tonnes if they carried oil and their capacity is given in cubic metres if they carry gas. They have an interesting technique where they measure oil production in barrels; they use �barrel of oil equivalent - boe� for gas mixed with oil; and cubic feet for gas. They must have a number of staff who spend a lot of their time converting between the various measures � and this doesn�t take into account the quite large possibility for errors. Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online newsletter, 'Metrication matters'. You can subscribe by sending an email containing the words subscribe Metrication matters to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --
