AMT: March Manufacturing-Technology Orders Show Typical Spike
May 13, 2024Comments
Orders of manufacturing technology in March grew nearly 25% above the February 2024 level, reaching $435.7 million as measured by AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology and published in its U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders Report. March orders typically post a large increase from February, AMT officials report, as many builders of manufacturing technology end their fiscal year in March. Although the typical bump over February was seen in the data, March 2024 orders were 21.3% below those of March 2023. Year-to-date orders reached $1.13 billion, an 18.6% decline from orders in the first quarter of 2023.
Orders from contract machine shops increased in March 2024 to their highest level in the last year, according to the report. Despite this increase, average monthly orders from contract machine shops are 11.3% lower in 2024 than in 2023. Customers ordering parts from contract machine shops increasingly have turned away from longer-term procurement cycles in favor of placing month-by-month orders or making sporadic, one-off purchases. As a result, machine shops have been hesitant to make additional machinery investments.
Electrical generation and power transmission equipment manufacturers helped drive the increase in orders from February to March 2024, which reached their highest level since March 2023. Orders from this sector had been on an upward trend since September 2023 due to government investment in new energy technologies.
See also: Association for Manufacturing Technology
Technologies: Management
