Initially, this article was going to explain how machine shops and moldmakers could sell all of their handheld measuring tools and gages and replace them with shop-hardened coordinate measuring machines (CMMs). Gone would be the time and expense of managing hundreds of micrometers, dial indicators, bore gages, and other metrology gear found in a typical shop’s inspection lab, all of it made obsolete by a single multifunctional device capable of measuring anything that fits within its volumetric area.

Fat chance, right? Apparently so. Gene Hancz, CMM product manager at Mitutoyo America Corp., Aurora, Ill.—one of the few metrology equipment providers that still makes hand tools—will tell you the company still receives orders for old-fashioned vernier-style calipers. It seems that some habits are hard to break.

Read the full article at SME.org.