U.S. cutting tool consumption totaled $178.1 million, according to the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology. This total, as reported by companies participating in the Cutting Tool Market Report collaboration, was up 2.6 percent from July’s $173.5 million and up 8.9 percent when compared with the $163.5 million reported for August 2021. With a year-to-date total of $1.4 billion, 2022 is up 7.9 percent.
These numbers and all data in this report are based on the totals reported by the companies participating in the CTMR program. The totals here represent the majority of the U.S. market for cutting tools.
“Some of the pricing pressures our industry has been experiencing have begun to ease,” said Jeff Major, President of USCTI. “Cutting tool sales have remained steady since the beginning of Q2 2022. Year-over-year sales are up in the high single-digit percentages. There is some market uncertainty as we move into Q4 and beyond. Indications are that the transportation sector will be a leading market in 2023.”
Tom Haag, President at Kyocera SGS Precision Tool, also commented on how well the cutting tool industry is currently doing and spoke on the industry’s relationship with the transportation sector: “August was a surprisingly resilient month, considering that typically it is negatively impacted by the seasonality of automotive model changes and pent-up demand for summer vacations. The cutting tool market is still not back to pre-pandemic levels, but it is continually clawing its way back. As automotive manufacturing continues to recover, aerospace production in the USA is still languishing behind. Forecasts of a complete recovery are still more than one year away as we face economic headwinds and supply chain bottlenecks.”
The Cutting Tool Market Report is jointly compiled by AMT and USCTI, two trade associations representing the development, production, and distribution of cutting tool technology and products. It provides a monthly statement on U.S. manufacturers’ consumption of the primary consumable in the manufacturing process – the cutting tool. Analysis of cutting tool consumption is a leading indicator of both upturns and downturns in U.S. manufacturing activity, as it is a true measure of actual production levels.