On 2008/03/16, at 11:05 AM, Remek Kocz wrote:
I recently spoke to a Canadian who was a seasonal construction
worker. He said that more and more architects in Canada were
drawing up the plans in metric, much to the chagrin of the builders
who only worked in imperial. Not an efficient way to do things,
but a step in the right direction. From what I've seen on a
construction site, outside of a few exceptions (drywall sizes, stud
spacings) houses could easily be built using metric specifications
and metric only measuring tapes.
Metric Today, a few years back, had an article about a foreign-born
architect who insisted on doing his design in metric, saying that
he was 10-15% more efficient this way, as opposed to doing things
in imperial. 10-15% efficiency gains are an easy sell in the
corporate world.
Remek
Dear Remek,
In the building industry in Australia in the 1970s, we used to
estimate that being completely metric on the job increased your
overall efficiency by about 10 % and increased your net profits by
about 15 %. Australian builders have been enjoying these cash
benefits every year since 1974.
These figures are pretty much in line with the 1980 Confederation of
British Industry (CBI) figures where they found that the equivalent
figures were 9 % reduction in turnover and 14 % increase in net
profit for fully metric industries.
The 9 % from the CBI is the figure that I used to estimate how much
it costs the USA each year to not go metric. See: http://
www.metricationmatters.com/docs/CostOfNonMetrication.pdf for details.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial
and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See
http://www.metricationmatters.com/ for more metrication information,
contact Pat at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or to get the free
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