Steelmakers such as U.S. Steel and Bethlehem, for example, are manufacturing some hard-metric products. This was not the case five or six years ago. Representatives for both companies cite the U.S. auto industry, which is manufacturing largely in hard metrics, as the driving force behind this trend. Moreover, steel producers are reportedly creating a bit of a cottage industry for metric fasteners and tools. The reason is that more and more manufacturing is taking place overseas where the metric system is the only system of measurement.
Imported equipment is built to hard-metric measurements.
That means repair tools and replacement parts must be built in metrics. After speaking with metal service centers across the U.S. and Canada, it's clear this trend is hitting pockets of the market, but not everywhere. A spokesman for Ryerson International has not seen demand for metric metals increase among the company's customers. We aren't experiencing any more demand than in the past. On the other hand, Maryland Metals, Baltimore, is reporting 10 to 15 percent annual growth in demand for metric sizes.