Manufacturing technology suppliers reacted with cautious optimism over reports that Ford posted the first sales gain in two years and that U.S. manufacturing activity slowed less than expected in July. But that’s not to say that tough times are over for the manufacturing industry.
“This country’s manufacturing sector shrunk at the lowest rate in a year. That’s hardly great news!” insisted Doug Woods, President of AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology in the US. “While we hope the July numbers represent a slowdown to the freefall our members have suffered over the past year, there is still a very long road ahead before most of them breathe easier". “The end to 19 consecutive months of decline in automotive sales that July’s sales figures represent is like a loud crack in the ice at the beginning of the spring thaw,” Woods added. “While AMT welcomes the success of the Cash-For-Clunkers program, it can’t go on forever….The auto industry will not turn around overnight.” Most experts agreed that the Ford turnaround could be largely attributed to the wildly popular Cash-For-Clunkers program. AMT Board member Kim Beck, President of Automatic Feed in Napoleon, Ohio, supports the U.S. government’s Cash-For-Clunkers program, but stresses that more needs to be done for small manufacturers. His small, third-generation company has been supplying coil handling and other equipment to the automotive industry for 50 years. In the past year, his work force has dwindled by 75 percent and business has fallen off dramatically. “My customers still lack the confidence and credit to invest in new equipment,” Beck said. “Real work needs to be done in Washington now in order to save America’s small manufacturers.”
Still, Woods is hopeful. “At least we can see a bottom to this business cycle,” he said. “Maybe Ford’s long awaited return to profitability and the small headway made in manufacturing foreshadows an end is near to the worst single year decline in our industry’s history.”
AMT - The Association For Manufacturing Technology (founded in 1902 as the National Machine Tool Builders’ Association) supports and promotes the U.S. manufacturing technology industry. The association provides U.S. builders of manufacturing systems with the latest information on technical developments, trade and marketing opportunities, and economic issues. It also gathers and disseminates information about world markets, promotes its members’ products in those markets, and acts as a representative on manufacturing technology matters to governments and trade organizations throughout the world.
