U.S. orders of machine tools were down in July 2014 but rebounded in August as reported by The Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT) in their monthly United States Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) report. The July numbers were fairly dismal, as domestic manufacturing technology orders totaled $354.63 million. Modern Machine Shop reports on the sluggish July performance:
[The] total … was down 11.5 percent from June and down 1.4 percent when compared with the total of $359.70 million reported for July 2013. With the year-to-date total of $2,711 million, 2014 is down 2.3 percent compared with 2013.
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AMT President Douglas K. Woods put an optimistic spin on the gloomy July figures for machine tools. “As capital equipment is reaching an advanced age and interest rates are continuing to stay low, we believe we will see strong order activity in the months following IMTS,” said Woods, according to Modern Machine Shop.
The market improved in August, as U.S. machine tools orders rose 5% over the July total with new equipment and related technologies totaling $371.97 during the month, according to IndustryWeek. The August 2014 numbers were a pale comparison to last year when U.S. machine tool orders reached $454.19 million in August, 18.1 % higher than this year’s total.
Woods, as quoted in IndustryWeek, is still even more optimistic about domestic machine tools after the August surge:
We’re finding many reasons for optimism within the manufacturing economy. In addition to the monthly gain for USMTO, the latest Purchasing Managers Index was at 56.2, its highest reading in more than two years.
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