As companies in the U.S.—the only industrialized nation not on the metric system—often must deal with both English and metric systems. That is especially true in the hydraulics industry, where with consolidation and globalization, it often means that suppliers of hose, tubing, ports and connectors either must offer components in both measurements or offer some sort of adaptor connection system.
“What we have in the U.S. is this mixing and matching of metric and English measurements. There’s been a lot of work done in the U.S. to accommodate both types of systems, but the U.S. really hasn’t gone over cold turkey to the metric system yet, and to be quite honest with you, I can’t see it happening in the near future.”
In the rubber and plastics industry specific to hose and tubing, the problem is that manufacturers use multiple types of connections, depending on where they are located. With consolidation, some foreign equipment makers are putting transplant operations into the U.S. but using the same design from their headquarters country, resulting in more metrics on equipment being produced domestically.