Training for METRICATION: NUMBER 1

In July 1971 under the title ‘Task Analysis for SI Metric Training’ we published a skeleton of the training task for metric change. This analysis concluded that training for metrication presented the biggest single technical training task undertaken in British industry. We consider the task so important that, although essentially transient, it is worthy of closer attention. Over the next 12 months, therefore, we propose to deal with different aspects of metric change as they affect training, providing training officers with practical guidance in a readily usable form, in some cases with direct access to training material. Decimal Currency came and went and in many ways proved to be the biggest non‐event of the year. Whether this was largely because the training tasks were taken seriously and dealt with comprehensively, or whether it was really due to the inherent simplicity of the change can never be proved. This painless transition has already lulled some companies into a false sense of security over metric change, in the belief that changing to metric can and will be achieved with similar ease once a sufficient number of other companies have changed. Nothing could be further from the truth.