Not only is is the use of FPS units rather than SI, but it is also the use of US-sized paper rather than A$.
Many is the time that I have cursed software packages that default to US letter rather than A4 From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stanislav Jakuba Sent: 20 October 2013 00:07 To: U.S. Metric Association Cc: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:53342] RE: Presenting the metric system to the innumerate Various reasons, usually due to the naive believe by a company leadership that U.S. drawings and specs should be understood by an overseas vendor. The more enlightened ones send me to help with the interpretation. Also, there are businesses in metric counties that make living on converting U.S. engineering documentation to metric practices. Speaking of metric people not wanting the U.S. to adopt metric - here is one group for sure. Contaminating metric people - they are more ignorant about that subject that Americans or Britishers. Could not care less. For them, TV screen sizes have numbers without units. They have been living with metric so long that most have hardly an idea that something else exists. And if they do, the awareness is in the former colonies that know the English system, not American. It is not that I would have trouble teaching the ANSI stuff (ASME, ASTM, SAE, IEEE, ASCE, ...), it is that it is too hard for metric audiences to remember it in the long run. And there is the attitude - most audience think that the units are silly. As are fractions. If the average American feels "why don't they do it our way" (a problem in many an international standards committee) realize that the metric people have the same attitude but ten(!) times stronger. Or maybe hundred times, I do not know. Stan Jakuba On Sat, Oct 19, 2013 at 9:21 AM, Kilopascal <[email protected]> wrote: Stan, I found it interesting that you experienced trouble teaching USC to non-Americans. I for one would like to know if there is a way to measure how well adult Americans raised on USC actually function in this Hodge-Podge collection of units. Do Americans avoid any type of real measurement simply because they don't know the units they support? Also, what possible good comes from contaminating a metric engineer's thinking by trying to teach him USC? The more ignorant they remain when it comes to USC the less likely they will promote inch based standards on the metric world. Like inch based TV & Monitor screens. These engineers should only be taught to convert USC to metric and round the values to get sensible metric values. Like the Chinese already do. From: Stanislav Jakuba <mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, 2013-10-15 18:40 To: Kilopascal <mailto:[email protected]> Cc: U.S. Metric Association <mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [USMA:53326] RE: Presenting the metric system to the innumerate Citing with kilopascal, I would not step into a (Boeing) airplane designed by inch people and made by metric people to Boeing, I-P documentation. Here is why. Inch people are somewhat familiar with metric, but this does not apply in reverse. Trust me on this one. I have been training metric engineers and technicians to work with inch standards: It is possible to teach them but impossible for them to grasp the stuff to the extend that that knowledge is of much use. Many of them never heard of such terms as an inch or ounce. Or the third angle of projection. On the other hand, I have been training inch people to work "according to the globally prevalent (metric) standards" with good results. Not only because being systematic the material is easier to teach but the students also remember it because they have lots of metric knowledge already (without realizing it). I should also bring up the possibility of confusion metric people face having no notion that I-P standards in GB are different than in U.S. A gallon is a gallon to them. Who would ever want to trust these people with manufacturing an I-P (what I-P) airplane? Fortunately nobody has been. By coincidence, the latest Metric Today published my article Did Metric Help Russians in the Space Race? I am attaching it here for those who (shame of them) are not USMA members. Notice in one of the last paragraphs the story of the British I-P documentation and the impossibility of manufacturing to it in the U.S. Stan Jakuba On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 11:07 PM, Kilopascal <[email protected]> wrote: Carleton, It is a completely untrue statement that foreign companies are/were forced by Boeing to work in inches and pounds. Get that notion out of your head. Foreign or domestic companies that are set up to work in metric can not work in USC. If they don't have the tooling and the know-how it can not be done. What instead is done, is the metric capable plant will convert the inch dimensions to millimetres and produce it from the conversions. Problem with conversions is the tolerances. Some rounding is always necessary when converting and even if tolerances are considered, accumulative tolerances can be a pain to keep track of. This is the problem Boeing ran into. When errors are made and they need to be traced to the source, it becomes a costly nightmare to see which conversions and tolerance stacking's produced the error. This can be very costly. Boeing has no choice when it comes to outsourcing. Some countries have laws requiring certain content from their own country be a part of the finished product before they agree to buy. Japan for example may require that Boeing produce part of the plane in Japan. I'm not sure if this example is true or not, but I am just trying to give a reason why Boeing may have to outsource some production. Japan's choice to purchase Airbus products really has nothing to do with metric versus USC but much to do with the problems plaguing the Dreamliner. Boeing is a has-been trapped in the past and a victim of its own arrogance. It wants to be a world-class company but it insists on using obsolete units of measure. The problem with this is it can't effectively have its products designed in the metric system so they can be produced anywhere with out a need for conversions and tolerance issues. Airbus on the other hand can have its components made anywhere and be assured the units they design to are the units used in the production no matter where they are made. Airbus can take advantage of the world market, Boeing can not. Don't be surprised if Boeing is out of business in 5 years. <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]&q=subject:%22%5BUSM A%3A53326%5D+RE%3A+Presenting+the+metric+system+to+the+innumerate%22> [USMA:53326] RE: Presenting the metric system to the innumerate <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]&q=from:%22Carleton+ MacDonald%22> Carleton MacDonald Sun, 13 Oct 2013 13:15:36 -0700 <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]&q=date:20131013> It is interesting to note the orders Boeing (inch-pound design) is losing to Airbus (metric design). Even from such stalwarts as Japan Air Lines, which just made a huge A350 order. I wonder how many of the Boeing 787 problems are due to forcing the foreign suppliers to manufacture in inchpound, and how many are just because of engineering incompetence. _____ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2014.0.4117 / Virus Database: 3609/6750 - Release Date: 10/14/13
