A simple matter of measurement

Remember the proverb, measure twice cut once?

Soon after we installed a new AB Inventing billblade coater on one of our paper machines, we received an US federal government order for that paper grade.

At the time the official letter size for the federal government was 8” by 10.5”, whereas everyone else in the USA, and several other countries, were using 8.5” by 11” paper.

Further, the government required the paper to be boxed in wood for shipment, which meant our small crew of carpenters were faced with an emergency/urgent work order to fill the order. Communications between production planning and maintenance planning was non-existent.

The box construction had to meet federal government standards so ripping, sawing and nailing were performed to meet those standards.

Basically, that meant a total retooling of our finishing room equipment, e.g, rewinders, sheeters, packaging line.

While the salesperson initially was praised for our first government order, after evaluation of the retooling time and effort, the costs versus negotiated price, it was determined never again would that company accept federal government specified paper orders.

Soon thereafter, the Reagan administration announced a standard of 8.5” by 11” for letter size within the federal government.

During the same time period, conversion to a metric measurement system within the US was seriously discussed with plans to convert in progress, a governing board was created.

In 1982 the Reagan administration disbanded the overseeing agency, the United States Metric Board.

As a maintenance manager during the time frame, interest in converting to the metric system because of its logical, simple metrics, e.g., 0, 10, 100, 1000, millimeter, centimeter, kilometer, etc. was high.

The Inventing coater was designed and manufactured in Sweden and every nut, bolt, tubing fitting, bearing, pipe, roll diameter and width was built to measurements within the metric system.

Hand tools had to be purchased (at a premium, at the time) for the everyday task of changing rolls, nozzles, tubing fittings, etc.

In frustration, crescent wrenches and channel locks became the hand tools of choice for the tradespeople, otherwise there was non-productive time trying to find the right socket or box end wrench to fit the nut, bolt, or fitting amongst their ‘normal’ tools.

Today the USA, joined by Myanmar and Liberia, has not officially adopted the metric system as its primary weights and measures standard.

Of interest, the international paper size standard is ISO 216, except in the USA and Canada. The A4 (8.27” by 11.7”) is the standard ‘letter’ format size for everyone else.