U.S. manufacturers’ consumption of cutting tools declined from October to November 2017, though the sponsors of the monthly Cutting Tool Market Report noted the expansion trend in domestic manufacturing continued, with demand building across a broad swath of industries.
In November, U.S. cutting tool consumption totaled $185.00 million, -6.6% compared to the October result but +9.6% over the November 2016 figure.
"Growth in the manufacturing sector in the U.S. and around the world improved as the year came to a close," according to William Strauss, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago senior economist. "Continued recovery in the energy and chemical industries was a big part of the strength. The automotive industry was a drag on activity through the first half of the year, but a temporary boost due to replacing hurricane damaged vehicles assisted the end-of-year sales."
Cutting tools are high-value consumable products used by manufacturers to perform not only cutting but turning, grinding, honing, and various other production processes. As such, consumption of cutting tools presents a quantifiable index to the current state of manufacturing activity, comparable to durable goods shipments.
The AMT – the Assn. for Manufacturing Technology and the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute release the monthly Cutting Tool Market Report. CTMR data is based on the totals reported by participating companies, whose results represent the majority of the U.S. market for cutting tools.
Through 11 months of results, U.S. manufacturers’ cutting tool consumption totaled $2.020 billion, +8.2% versus the January-to-November 2016 consumption figure.
"The year to date growth over 2017 continues to be above 8.0%, and movement on tax reform should continue to energize the economy," stated Brad Lawton, chairman of AMT’s Cutting Tool Product Group. "With that vision, the cutting-tool industry is ready to do our part in promoting the promising economic growth for our nation in 2018."
