A recent discussion on eng-tips.com has prompted some interesting replies. The discussion revolves around one individual asking for advice to help in the battle to promote metric at his company, despite push-back from their machine shop, and a lack of concern about the issue from higher-ups who have taken a pragmatic cost related approach. I believe that the responses received may have surprized this individual.

There are some who point out that the cost of switching to metric must be justified and explained to management. The problem here is that there IS a cost associated with switching from a shop based on inch tooling to a shop based on metric tooling. Is there savings associated with the switch? The benefits of switching units of measure are likely limited, unless they are dealing with much more complex issues. Once a company has a system in place, it is generally not economical to switch it midstream.

Several made the point that if the company is already standardized to inch, then any individuals at that company should adjust their methods accordingly. This is the same if a person accustomed to inch joins a company that has standardized to metric.

What I personally questioned was the rather strange idea that metric is somehow some sort of default when it comes to making the choice. The universe doesn’t know the difference between an inch and a millimeter. For us in the engineering field, it is easier to think in metric than in inch, but what are the real world advantages of one system or another? Unit of measure is completely arbitrary. One person who responded to the posting even pointed out the advantages of using hardware from both systems at the same time.

“But the rest of the world is using metric!” Umm, really? That, by itself, is an arbitrary point.

A counter arbitrary point, the United States of America has the largest economy on the planet by almost 2-fold. It doesn’t really matter what rest of world does because the U.S. is so big. It’s like saying that the 800lb gorilla in the room should wear jeans just because all the chimps in the room are wearing them. Maybe the gorilla is happy with his corduroys instead.

To this, there was a response about how the world combined outweighed the U.S. economy, and that the US is not 100% inch. My point at that time was simple, “…Americans might be surprized by the number of countries that ARE NOT 100% metric, many of which are in Europe. ”

I was surprized by the responses that comment provoked. There is apparently much less standardization going on around that planet that we’ve been lead to believe by hardcore metric proponents here in the U.S. I know about the imperial gallon, the pint, and oddities like the metric ton. However, I didn’t expect responses from the international community stating that there are significant fields and regions where standardization is in the old traditional imperial system and not metric.

The more I explore this topic, the more I’m convinced that it really just doesn’t matter. Once a choice for a company is made, then they should stick to it. I’m also learning that some strong proponents of metric here in the U.S. have a tendency to assume metric has greater adoption than what is true in reality.