Metric Conversion

Plans, Progress, and Problems in the Federal Government Gao ID: RCED-90-131 March 30, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the federal government's implementation of the metric system.

GAO found that federal agencies: (1) did not demonstrate a commitment to metric conversion, although they considered conversion inevitable; (2) allocated minimal resources to support a conversion; and (3) have not advanced beyond the early stages of planning. GAO also found that: (1) only 6 of the 37 agencies it surveyed had completed their guidelines; (2) more than 75 percent of the total work for metric conversion remained to be done; (3) there were no time frames for future progress in achieving metric conversion; and (4) coordination with and conversion of the private sector to the metric system, review of specifications and standards, and metric conversion costs and education posed additional problems to various agencies.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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