The Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT) has reported that the January 2015 US manufacturing technology orders totaled $341.17 million. This number is down 32.9 percent from December’s $508.57 million and down 4.8 percent when compared with the total of $358.45 million, reported for January 2014.
“To understand why we saw this drop in orders for January, December 2014 saw a sharp increase in sales. This was driven by many end-of-year orders that had been rushed through in order to qualify for tax rebate provisions that were enacted at the last minute for 2014,” said Douglas K. Woods, AMT president. “This is evidenced by the comparatively lower average order value seen in December vs. January, meaning that most end-of-year orders were for less expensive, in-stock machines that could be shipped quickly. The decline wasn’t unexpected, and we still foresee the manufacturing economy keeping on a stable path.”