YouTube / iTunes / Spotify / Radio Public / Pocket Casts / Google Podcasts / Breaker / Overcast
Listen to ArtisanEnglish.jp posts & lesson intros here.
Word of the Day: Retool
Ladies and gentlemen, retool is a word with which you should become familiar.
Why?
Haven’t you heard the world is Going Electric?
The Internal combustion engine (ICE) is going the way of the dinosaurs.
To retool means to equip a factory with new or adapted tools.
That means factories that make ICE cars will have to retool to make electric motors and cars.
You see, retooling occurs when a factory is equipped with new or adapted tools.
It’s not something new.
Factories retool all the time.
The issue is that retooling is expensive, and simultaneously retooling most factories will not make things any easier.
All those Fiat 500s, Ram ProMasters, and Toyota Hiluxes will have to be built with electric drive trains within the next ten years.
That’s a lot of factory retooling!
However, it’s not a foreign concept to automakers, as mentioned earlier.
Every lineup change or minor change to an existing model requires a factory retool.
It’s part and parcel of what it means to own and operate a factory.
Plus, it’s a boon for B-to-B businesses that supply all those robots and other machinery to automakers.
Not to mention all the engineers with unique expertise who will be required to make it happen.
Retooling a factory is never an easy decision to make.
The switch from ICE vehicles to electric ones will mean many long meetings where many questions will be asked and answered.
It’s more than likely that older factories with higher retooling costs will be shut down instead.
In conclusion, if you are involved in the auto industry or follow it, retool is a word you will be hearing for the next 10 to 15 years and beyond.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 66.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.