TABLES 44A & B Q. IIA-17 To your knowledge, are the products that you sell in the This question was intended to determine the amount of competition that the U.S. nonmanufacturing industries experience from foreign imports. The query was addressed to all firms that had been classified or identified as product-related. About 50 percent of the largest companies indicated that foreign imports did share their U.S. market. This suggested that the largest companies both here and abroad are the mass producers of widely consumed goods and are, therefore, probably competitive both in the U.S. and elsewhere. Small and moderate sized companies, which deal much more frequently in specialty goods, had less competition from foreign imports-only about 40 percent acknowledged it. Slightly more than half of the firms in the distributive industries-Wholesale and Retail Trades-reported that the products they sold were also imported into the U.S. from foreign countries. Those industries in which the largest number of firms indicated that the product they sold was not imported by foreign firms were Utilities (71%) and Construction (65%). In certain of the other industries (see table below) about half the firms indicated either no competition from foreign imports or said they didn't know of any. Those industries not listed in the text table were not in the productoriented part of the sample, i.e., Finance, Real Estate, et al. It appeared that the industries most directly concerned with exports to other countries, such as Agriculture and the distributive industries were also those most affected by foreign products imported into the United States. Trade is, in other words, a 2-way street. Those activities dealing chiefly with services-Utilities and Construction-were least subject to foreign competition in the U.S. Q. IIA-17a Are the measurement units or standards for these foreign imports (See Q. 17, tables 44 A & B) different from the ones used in your U.S. sales? Units or standards used on about 27 percent of the imports to the U.S. were said to be either the same or "sometimes" the same as those employed in goods produced in this country. Nearly two-thirds of these goods bear dimensions in accord with the measurement system in effect in the country of origin. This adherence by foreign producers to the use of SI measurement units has led, of course, to the problems with servicing of imported goods mentioned in Q. IIA—19, Tables 34 A & B. For products imported into the U.S. the measurement standards were said to be adapted to the American system in these proportions: 1 Only for those firms that had indicated in Q. IIA-17 that the products they sold were also brought into this country by foreign producers. It will be noted in the table above that the items handled by the major employer firms, the goods with the largest sales volume, were less often adapted by foreign producers to American measurement than were the goods handled by smaller organizations. In the most significant products, either in terms of large numbers of units produced (particularly mass produced) or in terms of high cost per unit, foreign producers were using only the measurement system of the majority of countries. Foreign manufactured automobiles, for example, are produced to metric engineering standards, and the U.S. consumer, as only one of many market areas, is expected to adapt to these measurements. The mechanical parts of foreign cars are rarely, if ever, sized to U.S. measurement standards. The degree of congruence between the measurement units used in U.S. and in foreign goods varied by the type of merchandise brought into the country. Those goods marketed in units sized by nature (agricultural produce) were most frequently bundled in U.S. dimensioned packages. The Utilities and Construction industries least often said they found imports in their fields adapted to U.S. standards. Congruence between U.S. units and measure ments used in imported goods Standards are: Congruent.. Sometimes congruent. Don't Know/No Answer... culture Mining struction Utilities sale Trade Service (N=40) | (N=36) | (N=65) | (N=11) Trade (N=227)| (N=12) Only those firms which had indicated in Q. IIA-17 that the products they sold were also brought into the U.S. by foreign producers. In summary, for all industry areas except the Agricultural group, a decided majority of imported goods, when sold in this country, use measurement units or standards of the country of origin. Foreign producers do not appear to need to adapt to the U.S. system in order to provide significant competition in the American market place. QUESTIONNAIRE III. CURRENT USE OF MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS IN COMPANY INPUTS In Section III of the questionnaire, company use of measurement systems in their own "in-house" operations was investigated. It was assumed that degree of metric usage in such activities would be a fairly direct reflection of both suppliers' activities with regard to the companies in the sample and actual preference by the company managements for metric equipment and supplies. TABLES 46-58A & B Qs. III-1 III-1a III-1b III-1c III-1d Does your organization make any significant use of equipment, supplies, components or tools which are described in metric units? Can you list for me those articles which are described in About what percent of your total (METRIC ARTI- Are those (supplies) (components) (equipment) (tools) Which of them have dual dimensioning? Detailed answers given to Q. III-1 and its parts required multiple tables for proper analysis of the information. Tables 46 through 58, A & B were all devoted to presentation of the data for this question. In answering Q. 1, 401 respondents (16% of the total sample) indicated some current usage of equipment, supplies, or components described in metric units. Of these, the heaviest users were firms with 250 or more employees. The users of metric items were probed further to determine the nature of the items they had mentioned. In order to determine whether degree of involvement with foreign commerce had any effect on use in U.S. operations of equipment, supplies, or components described in metric units, two special subpopulations were compared with the total sample population: (1) All firms which export to foreign countries, and (2) All firms having licensee or subsidiary operations in foreign countries. Firms Making Significant Use of Equipment, Supplies, It appears that when some portion of a firm's business was devoted to foreign commerce, the organization was more likely to use articles described in metric units in its U.S. operations. More than 1/4 of both the exporters and the firms having foreign licensees and subsidiaries made significant use of such goods or equipment as compared with barely 16 percent of the total sample population. The list of articles mentioned by the 401 respondents was then analyzed for each company to determine whether the equipment, supplies, or components, (a) were always described in metric units; or (b) were ever dual dimensioned. If for example, a respondent said his firm used syringes, drugs, and tape that were described in metric units, he was asked: "About what percent of all your syringes are described in metric units?" "Are these syringes you mentioned described in metric units only, or is Etc. In other words, each firm was asked to estimate what percent of the items mentioned was described in metric units and what percent had dual dimensioning. If 3 items were listed, one of which was always described (100% of the time) in metric units, the code for that company would be 33 percent |