ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

American System of Watch Manufacturing

Okay, imagine that you have a toy car that you really like playing with. But one day, it stops working and you can't figure out why. You take it to a toy repair shop to fix it.

The toy repair shop is like a watch factory in the American system of watch manufacturing. The people who work there are like the watchmakers who make and repair watches.

Now, there are two ways to make a watch. One is to do it by hand, which is like making a toy car from scratch. The other is to use machines to make the parts and then put them together, like assembling a toy car with ready-made pieces.

In the American system of watch manufacturing, they used machines to make the parts and then put them together. This made it faster and cheaper to make watches, which is why many watch companies in America used this system.

However, this system was not perfect. Sometimes the parts didn't fit together perfectly, which made the watch stop working or lose time. This was called "poor interchangeability".

To fix this problem, the American watch companies had to make sure that each part was made to very precise measurements. They had to use special machines to make sure that each part was exactly the same as the others. This was called "machine-tool technology".

So, to sum it up, the American system of watch manufacturing was a way to make watches quickly and cheaply using machines to make the parts. But to make sure the watch worked properly, they had to use special machines to ensure that each part was made precisely the same.
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