Metalworking Forecasting Tools

Machinery

Finding a leading indicator for an end market as broad as industrial machinery is pretty difficult. It would seem that as more money is spent on office buildings, hospitals, factories, hotels, etc. that more industrial machinery would be bought and the production of that machinery would increase. But, the relationship between real total construction spending and machinery industrial production is our least compelling right now. Part of the reason for this is that we have only 20 years of data to compare. We will have to continue to watch this relationship to see if it proves valuable for this end market.

Industrial production of durable goods leads machine tool unit sales. For the machinery industry, this seems to be the case as well. Keep in mind the sample size of sales for this industry is relatively small. So, while the percentage change shown here may not reflect total industry sales the fact is there was significant growth (see the years 2003-2005).