Metric transition: help for U.S. exporters - includes related articles

Business America, Sept 26, 1988

A renewod U.S. Government commitment to the metric system of measurement promises to help American companies in international marketing.

Many U.S. businesses and industries have been hobbled by the need to manufacture and market products in different dimensions-for U.S. consumption, on the one hand, and for the rest of the world, on the other. The recently enacted Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness

Act of 1988 addresses the problem by moving the United States closer to the metric system, now used by most of the world's population. The "inch-pound" system of measurement used in the United States, known as the Customary or "English" system, was abandoned even by the English, when the United Kingdom switched to the metric system in the early 1970s.

The trade act, signed into law Aug. 23 by President Reagan, states that the metric system is "the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce." It directs the federal government to provide leadership in metric conversion and calls for a preference in "government purchasing for metric products. The act requires federal agencies to use the metric system, wherever it is practical to do so, in procurements, grants, and other business-related activities by Oct. 1, 1992. The agencies will notify grantees, contractors, and suppliers of the new requirements and of time schedules for meeting the government's deadline.

The act specifies that the federal government has a responsibility to develop procedures and techniques to assist industry, especially small business, as it voluntarily converts to the metric system. Individual groups and industries are still free to decide whether or not to convert and to determine conversion timetables according to their own needs.

The trade act requires the government and industry to use metric units in documentation of exports and imports as prescribed by the International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System. TheHarmonized System is an international goods classification system designed to standardize commodity classification for all major trading nations. The international metric system (SI) is the official measurement system of the Harmonized System.

Congress spelled out in the act the reasons it believes the United States would benefit from converting to the metric system:

"World trade is increasingly geared towards the metric system of measurement.

"Industry in the United States is often at a competitive disadvantage when dealing in intemational markets because of its nonstandard measurement system, and is sometimes excluded when it is unable to deliver goods which are measured in metric terms.

"The inherent simplicity of the metric system of measurement and standardization of weights and measures has led to major cost savings in certain industries which have converted to that system . . .

"The metric system of measurement can provide substantial advantages to the Federal Government in its own operations."

The trade act, with its metric provisions, was hailed as a step toward increasing U.S. exports by Kenyon Y. Taylor, Chairman of the Board of the American National Metric Council, a private trade association whose members support voluntary metric use in the United States.

"American recognition of metric as the world's predominant measurement system is one of the best ways to encourage industry to tailor products to foreign customers' preferences and in turn increase exports. Just as English is the world language,' so metric is 'world measurement,"' he said.

The government is the country's largest consumer, Taylor noted, adding, "Many U.S. businesses with significant federal contracts have been waiting for the government to signal its intentions. With a metric customer the size of the government, implementation becomes economically practical. These manufacturers then will be able to expand into metric markets overseas. Our $140 billion trade deficit should decrease dramatically and exports increase equally in future years because of the metric provisions," he said.

Taylor added, "The Congressional intent in the act is "to enhance the competitiveness of American industry, The metric provisions may accomplish more toward that stated goal than any other in the legislation."

Surveys of foreign commercial officers reveal that metric demands create problems or cause U.S. firms to lose sales. For example, a firm in the Middle East couldn't find an American producer that could sell pipe with metric threads for oil machinery. A European firm had to rewire all imported electrical appliances, because the U.S. standard wire diameters were not sufficient to meet national standards. One country found it difficult to find a U.S. firm that would cut lumber to metric dimensions. Another said that the United States could increase its exports by more than 20 percent if metric products were provided.

The cost of metric conversion for U.S. industry should be manageable, in the opinion of Alan S. Whelihan, Acting Director of the U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of Metric Programs. "Industry experience has shown that when a timely decision to use the metric system is made and managed properly, there is negligible additional cost, and employees and suppliers experience little or no difficulty in making the transition," Whelihan said. "When the metric decision is delayed until competitive pressures force the change, there may well be some waste in product obsolescence due to the unacceptability of inch-based designs that fail to meet international market preferences or requirements for metric designs."