February Manufacturing Technology Orders Up 2.1% Over January; Contract Machine Shops Decreased Orders, While Aerospace Increased
Orders of manufacturing technology, measured by the U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders Report published by AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology, totaled $343.3 million in February 2024. This was a 2.1% increase from January 2024 but a 26.5% decline from February 2023. Year-to-date orders reached $679.6 million, a decline of 16.9% from the first two months of 2023.
While orders have thus far fallen short of the expectations from the beginning of the year, it is important to remember how good orders were in the first quarter of 2023. Manufacturing technology orders in the first three months of 2023 averaged $455.6 million per month. In the remainder of the year, monthly orders only reached $395.9 million. This is high by historical standards but reachable given the resilient economy and IMTS returning to Chicago’s McCormick Place later in the year. Small and medium-sized businesses, primarily contract machine shops, continued to fall behind the market, yet OEMs in several sectors increased their capital investment.