And what about NTSC and PAL or Secam (to stay on the TV subject)?

And before anybody gets to subject of units. Why English and Metric. Why are we in the States still hanging on to the English system, while even the English are almost totally changed over.

S.

Originally posted by mboteo

And what about NTSC and PAL or Secam (to stay on the TV subject).Well, there goes my 'advertising' part of the equation - at least in this instance.

What are some of the pros and cons of each? I don't know much in detail about the development of these 3 standards. I know the US is NTSC (a US 'national standard'?), Europe is PAL (I think), and have no idea what Secam is.

Sadly, we have been a Metric Nation since 1976, although you wouldn't know it.

We must be slow learners... :biglaugh:

Kevin

Yeah - there was some 'real' legislation about that time, wasn't there.... :rolleyes:

Yes and evidently complicated legislation. Nobody gets it... :(

How many more failed Mars landings do we need before we'll get it?

Amazingly enough I read an article in QM this month, claiming that using the metric system would loose on accuracy in metrology. I thaught I heard it all already. But to read this from a so called specialist in metrology....

Steven

Steven,

Thule (the company I work for) is a metric company. Amazingly, it is quite difficult to get high precision gage blocks, gage pins, etc. Many of the items we use for our in-house calibration took 6-18 months to have manufactured since they aren't in-stock items. While the technology in metrology is the same, the difficulty is probably with in-house and farmed out calibration services.

Did the article mention anything along these lines?

Regards,

Kevin

p.s. sorry to deviate from the topic folks.

Gentlemen -- within the past week or so I read an excellent article on the manufacturing economics that stood in the way of conversion to the metric system. On the surface it seemed pretty reasonable. I will find it and post it.

Thanks Ben!!

I agree that there will be an initial cost involved with moving over to metrics. Calibration houses just gonna have to follow. Luckily the big 3 are only interested in metrics.

But to bring up the issue of accuracy, as a reason for staying with the English system, will not fly with. That would be a too naive. Of course the rest of the world isn't even capable of touching the States' accuracy in engineering...

Steven

To convert to the simple metric system in the US would be an extremely costly venture. Where I worked before we had actually lost some potential business due to the lack of metric capabilities.

Originally posted by mboteo
I agree that there will be an initial cost involved with moving over to metrics. Calibration houses just gonna have to follow. Luckily the big 3 are only interested in metrics.

But to bring up the issue of accuracy, as a reason for staying with the English system, will not fly with. That would be a too naive. Of course the rest of the world isn't even capable of touching the States' accuracy in engineering...

Steven

To whom it may concern, I have seen 1, yes 1, G.M. print that was metric. 2 N.V.G. prints, and 3 Ford prints. I may be new, only 24 years automotive and the "engineers" coming out of today's systems can't even describe 24.5 without a printout.

Think long and hard why the United States is still using base 12!:bigwave:

What do you mean with "can't even describe 24.5 without a printout"?

S.

Interesting debate.

I struggled with metric at the end of my apprenticeship when the UK was in the throws of changing to metric. For several years I worked in 1/16ths, 1/32nds, 1/64ths and multiple thereof and resisted the metric system, then sudenly I woke up and realized it was easier to count in 10's.......... Give me metric any day.

In those days we used to have a thriving motorcycle industry in the UK, they wouldn't change either, then the Japanese came along with their 'reliable goodlooking' bikes , the rest is history and the british motor cylce became somewhat extinct. (Strange the Japanese bikes had metric fittings)

Geoff.
ps. It's called the 'Imperial' system not the 'English' system, just as metric is not called the 'French' system.

___________________________________________________
Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.

:ko:

Nice way of putting Geoff, from somebody who has been in two worlds.

In my own words, I purely think the reason behind the lack of will to transfer to the metric system here in the US, is purely based on the lack of will to change, and of course the acclaimed extra cost to it (for plants that have no metric involvement at all).

The lack of will to change is, being a change agent myself, something that I can't understand.

It took me less than 3 months to feel totally at home using the Imperial system when I moved to the States from Belgium 5 years ago. The plant I work in was 95% imperial based, mainly thru it's medical device customers. Now since dealing with the automotive industry so much, we are running about 33% metric, and switching over from imperial to metric and back happens as often like changing underwear.

Our metrologist never reported any issues about lack of accuracy using metric, or dificultiees with calibration. Neither did she ever reported an increase in coasts due to the metric system.

By the way, English bikes still rule ...
Wonder what Harley D. is using, they increased there quality tremendously, compared with 10 years ago.

Steven

> the british motor cylce became somewhat extinct

Wasn't the old Norton an English bike? A friend had one in the late 1960's. A Norton 750 as I rmember. One fast bike... Pretty, too! Now - That was a motor bike. Nortons and BMWs were the bikes my group of friends salivated over. We equated Harleys with stationwagons - slow, clunky and always a problem (bring your tool kit even for short rides).

> Wonder what Harley D. is using

You don't want to know... I worked with them almost 5 years ago. It was a difficult contract.

> they increased their quality tremendously,
> compared with 10 years ago.

Yes and no. No other comment... Haven't been in the York plant in years and never did get to the new facility in Kansas City - it wasn't up and running when I worked with them in their initial ISO implementation.