Economy

AMT: Manufacturing Tech Orders Up 7.3% in May

July 10, 2019

Manufacturing technology orders in May rose 7.3 percent from April to $378.4 million. The Association for Manufacturing Technology reported orders for metal cutting technologies increased 4.5 percent from the previous month while orders for forming and fabricating jumped 64.8 percent.

Total orders fell almost 22 percent from May 2018. Orders for the first five months of 2019 totaled $1.867 billion, a 13.5 percent decline from the same period in 2018.

“Manufacturing technology orders will be good but smaller than 2018, and we will see a significant move in the customer mix as large manufacturers shift capital liabilities down the supply chain or into the machine shop sector,” said Pat McGibbon, Chief Knowledge Officer for AMT. “In the past four months, the share of total orders placed by machine shops increased more than 20 percent. This is typical of business cycles with disruptions rather than a decline in manufacturing activity.”

AMT notes that order growth was varied by industry with construction machinery manufacturing seven times higher than April and agricultural equipment more than doubled. Primary metal manufacturing orders fell by more than 50 percent.

Regionally, orders growth was strongest in the Southeast, gaining 25.8 percent from April. Gains were seen in the West, North Central – East, and South Central regions, while modest losses were reported in the Northeast and North Central – West regions.