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Workload drop off

solidworkscadman

Hot Rolled
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Location
MASS
We are in New England and the past few weeks we have seen our backlog drop off and customers cancel orders like it was 2016. Has anyone else seen a substantial decrease in the amount of work coming in?
 
We are in New England and the past few weeks we have seen our backlog drop off and customers cancel orders like it was 2016. Has anyone else seen a substantial decrease in the amount of work coming in?
It is a little slower right now here too.
 
We’re in central New Jersey and work has slowed a fair bit. Our largest customer makes large sells large manufacturing “lines” and they have had an order for a large machine since last year. Thankfully some other customers have had some more than average work. Hopefully things pick up soon...
 
I’ve found that mid year work loads typically start to fall off. We are busy but not slammed with work. I have a lot of RFQ’s but that’s about it
 
1st round of layoffs this week, just gets me bummed out. I'm so used to just being go go go all the time I'm not used to trying to find stuff to do. May start 4 day work weeks soon
 
Our powder coating and laser cutting is booming right now. We're trying to get back into the habit of running our old laser machine every day too to keep up. But it won't last.
 
Do you guys know how new machine sales are going in the US? any word from dealers, busy, slow? usually that should be a decent indicator of if there's work somewhere and people motivated to grow. Used machines seem to be moving pretty quick, but I wonder if mazak, dmg/mori and haas are running at capacity or little slower? Either way, certainly not many offering any deals that would indicate they're hungry.
I'm still quite busy here, had to turn away about 30k of work just last week that I couldn't do in time.
 
I am as buried as ever but it doesint take much to bury a four man shop. I like keeping it small but have times I wish for a few more guys. I need one good all around guy who wants to become my right hand and learn it all. It's a perfect opportunity for a young guy who's tired of loading parts and hitting the green button.

Make Chips Boys !

Ron
 
Central Jersey here. A bit of a drop off as well. We're a repeat turning shop. 14 CNC Lathes and ~55 Swiss Cam Lathes
 
Business continues to grow under president Trump. The Democratic states are probably going to be prone to dwindling economics and much higher taxes. Here in NW Florida business is booming. We continue to hire and pay very well. I got a call from a former employer who wanted to hire me back, at considerably higher pay. I declined, having way too much fun here.
 
We are in New England and the past few weeks we have seen our backlog drop off and customers cancel orders like it was 2016. Has anyone else seen a substantial decrease in the amount of work coming in?

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my company moderately busy. they stopped working Sundays a few months ago. a lot of uncertainty about world wide trade and many customers are pausing and waiting for things to settle down. you tend to delay spending millions on new equipment unless your sure you got use for it for at least 5 years
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the biggest concern is electric cars. they use less complex parts like gears and if they might last longer with less maintenance parts and many might not buy new car for 15 or more years. this can seriously effect the auto industry.
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i saw same with photography. as digital cameras especially with phones became popular the business became less and less every year til Kodak declared bankruptcy and i lost my old job. sure we saw it coming for 20 years and tried to get into digital photography. but many just use their phone for pictures and dont bother printing but show on the phone.
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you can see the train coming for years but doesnt mean you can stop it
 
More work than people here in the Midwest. I keep an eye on job postings pretty regular. A few are popping up at $30/hour+ - a good time to be a machinist [here].
 
What a bizzare theory based on nothing.


East of the Mississippi river, that's probably true. There's been a trend for years now where automotive & firearm business is trickling south. Pretty consistently enough to say "From Blue states to Red..." Some of that has been politically motivated as well - Beretta moving manufacturing from Maryland to Tennessee for instance. The foreign automotive transplants avoiding the northern states in favor of less-union, right-to-work states.

Not trying to start a political debate - just fact...
 
Do you guys know how new machine sales are going in the US? any word from dealers, busy, slow? usually that should be a decent indicator of if there's work somewhere and people motivated to grow. Used machines seem to be moving pretty quick, but I wonder if mazak, dmg/mori and haas are running at capacity or little slower? Either way, certainly not many offering any deals that would indicate they're hungry.
I'm still quite busy here, had to turn away about 30k of work just last week that I couldn't do in time.


Inside the back cover of Modern Machine Shop Magazine - every month.

Modern Machine Shop - MAY 218



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Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 








 
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