With IMTS in September, this should have been a good month for business in the US and, to an extent, we do see this in the machine tool orders figures which were the highest for some time but below the average for an “IMTS September”. The tooling side of the sector was affected by the Boeing machinists strike.
The US Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) programme tracks orders in the US market, based on the reports from participants in the survey. In the first nine months (three quarters) of the year, total machine tool orders were -7.7% lower than in the same period of 2023 (January to September) and the rolling-annual total is -6.6% lower than the previous 12-month period.
The pace of decline in both measures has slowed noticeably as a result of the boost in orders in September from IMTS but given that this was a below average result for a month in which the exhibition occurs, it remains to be seen if this is a blip or the marker of a turning point. There are some mixed indicators at the industry level with contract machining companies showing the highest order levels since March 2023 and an improvement in business from manufacturers of automotive transmissions; these were balanced to some extent by a month-on-month fall in orders from the aerospace industry – if this was because of the strikes at Boeing – this is likely to have been a temporary reduction.
In the regional analysis, two areas continue to buck the negative trend with an increase in orders compared to the first nine months of 2023; the strongest performance is in the West (+15%), with more modest growth in the South-East (+3%). The decline in orders in the North-Central-West is relatively small (-5%) with the other 3 areas all seeing double-digit declines with reductions ranging from -14% in the North-East to -18% in the North-Central-East and -19% in the South-Central area.
The US Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR) tracks orders for tooling on a similar basis; the total for January to September 2024 is just +0.7% higher than the same months of last year and the 12-month rolling total is up by only +1.3%. Orders for cutting tools fell between August and September and while the machinists strike at Boeing is undoubtedly part of the story, there are other factors at play driving this trend.
Falling output, as indicated by the manufacturing PMI being in negative territory, is affecting a number of industries, not just aerospace, and pre-election uncertainty led to various projects being put on hold. There is no regional breakdown in the cutting tool press release.
You can download the press releases for the two surveys from the AMT web-site at https://www.amtonline.org/topic/intelligence, with the CTMR release also published on the USCTI web-site at www.uscti.com (go to the News tab); alternatively, you can request either or both releases from MTA and we can make sure you get them when they are published each month. We have attached a set of charts tracking the rolling 12-month totals from these two surveys which you can download below.