Orders for machine tools slid in January on both a monthly and year-over-year basis, AMT – The Association for Manufacturing Technology said today.
Orders for the month totaled $355.6 million for the month, AMT said in a monthly report.
That was down 17 percent from the adjusted $430.1 million for December and 19.5 percent from $441.7 million in January 2022.
“January orders are down, but the decline is consistent with expectations,” Douglas K. Woods, president of McLean, Va.-based AMT said in a statement.
"After the historic run of orders placed in the last two years, a mild slowdown in new orders could help to reduce the current backlog and put the manufacturing technology industry in a position to deliver machinery with much shorter lead times when economic activity is anticipated to pick up later in the year,” Woods added.
The figures are from companies participating in AMT’s U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) program.
In 2022, machine tool orders initially began strong but trailed off as the year wore on. Despite that, AMT said 2022 results were the third-best on record.
In December, the Institute for Supply Management, Tempe, Ariz., forecasted manufacturing would start 2023 in a weak position and then recover in the year’s second half.
The group’s manufacturing index, known as the PMI, has indicated that the manufacturing economy has been in contraction for four consecutive months.
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