Episode 47: Exploring Manufacturing Opportunities with AMT

In this episode of The Sound of Automation podcast, we sit down with Mary Cecile Neville and Chris Chidzik from The Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT) to discuss what the manufacturing market looks like, where it's headed and what's to come at IMTS 2024. Listen in to learn how AMT can help manufacturers leverage new opportunities, make connections and grow their businesses.

Additional resources:
AMT U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) report 

For more information on Wipfli, please visit our website at:
https://www.wipfli.com/manufacturing. You can also contact us here.

Transcript

Chris Chidzik 00:00

Our mission is to help our members either increase sales or decrease costs. And a core part of that is understanding how the market works, the size of the market, and where opportunities are. 

Podcast Intro Narrator 00:15

Welcome to The Sound of Automation, brought to you by Wipfli, a top 20 advisory and accounting firm. 

Bryan Powrozek 00:35

Hello and welcome to the Sound of Automation. I'm your host, Bryan Perozek with Wipfli. And joining me today are two of our partners from the Association for Manufacturing Technologies, AMT. We thought it would be a good time to have them on. There's a lot of activity on their side, things coming up most notably for folks in the manufacturing world, probably the IMTS show that's coming up in September. So really we're here to just talk a bit about what AMT, the mission, what it can do to help manufacturers. But before we kind of roll into that, I'd like to introduce the guests, Mary Cecile Neville and Chris Chidzik. So would you both do a quick introduction, kind of give a little bit of your background and what your role is within AMT. 

Mary Cecile Neville 01:15

Thank you, Bryan, so much for having us on this podcast. It's a very exciting time for us with September IMTS coming up. I am director of content here at AMT. I've been with AMT just over three years, so I am fairly new into this manufacturing technology space and have found it absolutely amazing from the technologies to the people. I work with a lot of the video content, digital content, written content that we push out on our platform IMTS Plus that is kind of our year -round connector, digital twin, some say of IMTS. And I work with Chris on a lot of economics and the articles that he puts together. 

Chris Chidzik 01:56

And I'm Chris Chidzik, principal economist with AMT. And primarily what I work on is gathering industry data, primarily through USMTO program and our cutting tool market report, as well as a work holding survey. We take this information, combine it with all the various economic data that's available through the government, other trade associations, and try and help our members understand what the market looks like and where it's likely headed. 

Bryan Powrozek 02:24

Well, thank you both for coming on and Chris, you mentioned a word there which I think is kind of the key to me in the way that AMT can help manufacturers and that's information, right? That seems to be at the core of what AMT is trying to do for manufacturers is give them insights, abilities to connect, really the pertinent information they're going to need to run and grow their businesses. Is that a fair assessment? 

Chris Chidzik 02:53

Absolutely. Our President, Doug Woods, always likes to say that our central mission is to help our members either increase sales or decrease costs. And a core part of that is understanding how the market works, the size of the market and where opportunities are. And the data that we collect on the size of the market and what's happening is really integral to that mission. 

Bryan Powrozek 03:21

Excellent. And just, you know, as we were kind of prepping for the call, I mean, that that really kind of falls into, you know, four main main areas or buckets, right? Then we've got the the information you provide on technology, just general market intelligence, kind of like you referred to the advocacy work, I guess. And then there's also this this whole international aspect to what what you all do. So I guess, Mary or Chris, when you want to talk maybe a little bit more about each one of those buckets and kind of what what goes into them. 

Chris Chidzik 03:53

Yeah, absolutely. So just kind of running down the list you mentioned. So we do have a whole technology department that's focused on kind of emerging technologies, the new cool things that you'll really get to see a lot of at IMTS, as well as you know, who's making it, who's investing in it, and just creating a real good picture of what that space looks like. Like any other association, we also do traditional advocacy stuff. Ours is a little different in that a lot of what we do is we do take positions on certain issues, but a lot of it is really helping our members advocate for themselves and either giving them the information they need, putting them in the right direction, or setting up whatever meetings they need. Another real interesting aspect is our global services department. We can help our members who are interested in branching out to different international markets through either proxy hires, warehousing, use of our international office space, and it's really one of probably the best benefits that we have to membership. And then finally, I saved kind of selfishly my favorite for last, the intelligence department, which includes our research services, which ranges anywhere from, hey, how many machines were sold last month to, I'm thinking about exploring this new product or this new territory. Can you help me gather some data to see if it's a good investment? So pretty much anything in that gambit, we're able to investigate. Now, as members, you get access to complimentary research services. It's just a couple hours every now and then, but we also can ramp that up and do paid consultative services. So really, the only limit is your imagination and what you can ask us.

Bryan Powrozek 05:52

Oh, that's fantastic. And I like when we were prepping and talking about the international piece, having worked with a number of companies, kind of on the opposite side, companies outside the US looking to come in and just knowing how daunting of a task that can be for a foreign -owned company, just something as simple as to come in and get a bank account set up here in the US. And so we've worked with a lot of companies coming this way. So I know that those services are invaluable. If you're a US manufacturer that's identified, hey, we've got a real market opportunity in Germany or South America or wherever it might be. To have somebody that's been through it before can guide you, can provide the insights. And like you mentioned, having that landing zone that they can come into and not have to worry about, how do I find a office to rent for six months while I figure out if this is a viable opportunity or not? So that's a fantastic resource available to members. 

Chris Chidzik 06:51

So absolutely, yeah. 

Bryan Powrozek 06:53

Alright, so then let's let's shift gear into your, you know, your passion area here, Chris. So the forecasts and the market research is a big piece of kind of the value proposition. Let's talk a little bit about the economics and kind of what we're seeing. I know, you just kind of concluded your June research findings still to be published. Hold this space, at least as of we're recording on July 31. So in a few weeks, the actual report will be coming out. Depending on when you listen to this, it may already be out. But talk to us a little bit about what you're what you're kind of seeing maybe a sneak preview if you can, if you can share anything. 

Chris Chidzik 07:32

Yeah, absolutely. So at the beginning of the year, forecasts were pretty optimistic. And then as machinery orders kind of rolled in, they weren't really meeting expectations. I think a lot of the forecasts were predicated on the Fed making a certain number of cuts this year. And I don't really think it's the actual cuts themselves that messed up the forecast. I think it's more the uncertainty around, well, we thought this was going to happen. And now it's not. So I think that's really messing with a lot of the forecasts that were coming out in the beginning of the year. Now, we've really improved orders since then. We started out in a pretty deep hole. But every month since then, we've been narrowing the gap between year to date 24 orders and year to date 23. Through the first half of the year, it's only down about 10 .7%, which is still below forecasts, but I think at a really good pace. The second half of the year tends to outpace the first in most years. And that's not even considering IMTS. Even in non -IMTS years, the second half is typically better for orders of machinery. 

Bryan Powrozek 08:54

And we all know this is a little bit of a strange year. I mean, anytime you've got an election in the mix and you mentioned the term uncertainty, right? I think that's a lot of my clients have seen the same thing, right? The things, orders kind of hanging out there for a long time while folks are trying to figure out. So hopefully as we get through that election cycle, there's a little more certainty for everyone. We do see some of those orders kind of open up at the end of the year and come through. And the report that we referenced, I think you said that's coming out August 12th or is the scheduled date for it to be released. So for anyone listening, if you hear this after August 12th, the report should be out, go track it down on the AMT website. But there's also, I think you'd mentioned a webinar coming up in early August as it relates to kind of updates to some of those forecasts, is that correct? 

Chris Chidzik 09:50

Yeah, Tuesday, August 6, might be a little bit late to watch it live, but the recording will be available. You can just reach out to either myself or anybody you know at AMT, and we can get you that information. We'll have Oxford Economics updating their machine tool forecast, as well as HPO forecasting, a Swiss based company, giving us kind of their outlook for the US machine tool market. And so that should be pretty interesting, especially given we have a Fed meeting tomorrow, or like, Oh, jeez, today. I don't even know what day it is. So we have a Fed meeting today. Hopefully that'll be some good forward guidance going forward. And it'll brighten up the mood. Another thing you mentioned that I didn't want to kind of pull in was the elections. I actually wrote an article about two years ago about the effect of elections on machinery orders. And the long story short was they really didn't matter. It's it's really interesting. So regardless of what actually happens with the election, machinery orders weren't really that affected. But the interesting finding was that in Congress, no matter which parties in control, the narrower the majority, the lower orders tended to be in the following two years. So I have a couple theories why that might be, but none are totally vetted yet. But it was just an interesting finding in the data. So oh, that is something to kind of keep in mind. 

Bryan Powrozek 11:22

Well, and that's, no, that is very interesting. And so I guess then people should be rooting for a blowout this year, one way or the other, whichever side you're on, root for the blowout if you're in the manufacturing industry. And of course, you know, I run into this all the time, the hazards of podcast recording dates are always messy. So I can almost guarantee this will not be out before August 6th. So anyone listening to this, go look at the AMT website, find the recording of that economic update and take a listen, because that's, you know, that's just one of those additional data points for business owners, business leaders to take in and try and help guide their strategy. Because it's, I think we're long since past the world of set a 12 month strategy and revisit it 12 months later, you got to stay on top of this at all times. So, all right, excellent. So let's go to another great source. And I really like the IMTS show for a number of reasons, but I think the biggest thing is that it brings manufacturers all together in the same place at the same time. And so not only is it great to be able to go out and see the technology, see, you know, what's changing, what's coming, what are your competitors doing, what are, you know, tools that you might be able to use within your business in the future, but you'll be there with your peers and people that you can talk to and hey, what are you seeing in business? How are you approaching this? Are you seeing this issue? So Mary, maybe if you want to just talk a bit about IMTS, kind of what the goal is for this year, what some of the highlights are and what should attendees, you know, kind of anticipate. 

Mary Cecile Neville 13:05

Sure. So it is, you know, IMTS is the largest manufacturing trade show in the Western Hemisphere. This year's 2024 is looking very solid, you know, as we keep 2022 was kind of our compact show, like many others. So this year, you know, the thing that we have is inspiring, inspiring the extraordinary, and that goes across all facets of the industry, people, ages, everything. And with that, like you said, you know, we come to IMTS, and it is the entire ecosystem of manufacturing technology. There are 10 sectors broken out into four halls, four buildings, we call them north, south, east, west. And the 10 sectors range from, you know, automation, robotics, additive sector, automation, robotics is accelerated by SPS, the Smart Production Solutions show in Germany, and the additive sector is accelerated by Formnext in Germany. And then we also have, you know, work holding and tooling and machining and software, and it goes on, you know, on and on, you can find those on our website at ints .com. With that, you know, we have a lot of content pieces going on, we have 12 conferences that are happening this year. One is the IMTS conference that is actually run by GIE Media as our partner. And just to give an idea of that, this year's numbers for registration are higher than any other year. So I think just like you're saying, people are looking for that, you know, technical, you know, hands on onsite knowledge coming in, you know, which is great. And then we also have several other programs. I know we've talked about the Elevate programs, which there's one for job shops, there's one for LATAM, which we got, you know, for Latin American, Spanish speaking, and one focus for women, women make manufacturing move. Those are each, again, designed for that specific piece of the industry, you know, job shops are lifeblood. So the sessions, there's three days as part of that, we work on partnership with Gardner Business Media, modern machine shop, and also additive manufacturing media, they have a 3D print for job shops workshop, we have their modern machine shops does their benchmarking with a top shops, and then we have a day accelerated by AMT, where we're talking about the shop of the future. So a lot of is about automation, machine and machine learning. And, you know, again, being successful. And just like you said earlier, there's no longer that 12 months for a 12 month later, it's right now. So being on top of that. The LATAM elevate is we have new this year, for Spanish speaking, it isn't, you know, Spanish only, that's really talking about, you know, what is going on in manufacturing technology in those spaces, whether it's from, you know, supply chain, and, you know, automation and, and sustainability, things like that. So that is a half day workshop. And then there's also reception. And then the women manufacturing move as a keynote breakfast, we have Dr. Sharon Cobb, from NASA, who is going to talk about things that are going on in space and manufacturing technology and being a woman in manufacturing and NASA and the government. So those are some pretty neat things. If you want, I can keep going on content or questions. 

Bryan Powrozek 16:26

Well, and that was gonna be you know, and this didn't I always seem to no matter how much prep I do in the front end, I always seem to come up with these questions, you know, as we're going through the recording, but I would just be curious as you know, yourself and Chris both being through the show before and, and that this is a massive show and it can I remember my first, you know, first IMTS show, it was overwhelming. There was just so many people so much information. What advice do you have for attendees to kind of get the most out of the show? You know, I like the fact that there's these focuses, you mentioned the job shop and the women in manufacturing. So that helps kind of draw my attention that hey, if this is, this is something that, that appeals to me or applies to my business, I can go in and kind of focus on that track. But I'm just kind of curious, you know, what advice you have to attendees to get the most out of it. 

Mary Cecile Neville 17:17

So it's great timing because I had a call earlier with our colleague, Bonnie Gurney, with some friends in the UK who were asking that exact question. They're coming over and we're just asking, you know, they were there two years ago and there's a lot going on. The best advice is to go to IMTS .com and if you go to find exhibitors, you can look at the floor plan by the 10 sectors that I was, you know, running through a few of them. You can also go by, you know, certain products, sectors in the industry. That's probably the best way to start. And then you can kind of map out, okay, where do I want to be? The best way is probably to approach it by building. So if North and South buildings are across from one another, they are the largest. And then East is kind of across a skybridge and West, where additive and work holding and tooling is also across a skybridge. So I would say, you know, West for a day. And then North and South, you know, again, you can do those, you know, kind of flipping back and forth even that they are quite large. The other thing, we're going to be releasing our schedule for our IMTS Plus main stage, which is a large stage in the Grand Con Course Hall in between North and South buildings. We have a lot of pretty incredible content going on this year. It's stacked starting with keynotes at 930 and or 830. Actually, we have a live kind of morning news show that Chris is going to be on talking about economics one day. And we have our 930 opens up with keynote. You know, we'll have Google Cloud, Hexagon, Siemens, Dr. Sharon Cobb from NASA. Let me think, there's a Stratasys. We have Brad Kozlowski, who races NASCAR for built submarines to come. And also it's very big in additive manufacturing. And that's his passion. We have panels. So we will have schedule up next week and go, you know, you can look on there and again, map it out before our app is coming out August 7. And sign up for a map your show planner. You can find that on the website as well. And that really, you can add in favorites, your favorite your companies that you want to go visit. You can schedule meetings with different companies. You can also create a schedule with the different conferences or sessions that you want to attend, just to keep aware on that. And also events. So that is probably a key point to have a map your show planner, because you can just access that on your phone and look it up. And always leave time for new things. I mean, if you're a person or company that's coming that you have scheduled meetings and you're coming there to meet with people that you already know, definitely leave time for those who don't. And the technologies you don't know. Because as we all have heard and know in the last couple of years, manufacturing is moving faster than ever. The technology is changing and growing. And so there's going to be a lot to see that we don't even know that's coming out, you know, until we get on site. 

Chris Chidzik 20:16

My biggest suggestion was wear comfortable shoes. 

Bryan Powrozek 20:21

Yes, this is you will definitely get your steps in at IMTS. I think I was having a competition with my brothers at the time on Fitbit or whatever. And they were like, what the heck are you doing today? I'm like, I'm at I'm at a trade show for a couple of days. You guys aren't even going to catch me. You know, it's interesting because I don't know how how we survive trade shows before the apps, but but I think that's, you know, the best piece of advice I, you know, I give to anyone going to these shows is is really to map it out. Because, yeah, you can go there and there's some smaller shows I go to where it's like, OK, I'm going to be able to walk this entire floor and I'm not overly worried about it. But but something the size of this, you know, you want to make sure you're hitting all the things that are pertinent. You're getting to go to those sessions, you know, that, you know, are really meant to educate and provide that information that Chris talked about at the outset, the information that's going to help you run a better business as a business owner, as a business leader or someone who's aspiring to build their own business, you know, to kind of see where the market is going. So you want to take in as much of that information as you can. But then I like I also like the point about leaving some time for the unknown. You know, you may get in there and all of a sudden you wind up down one of the rows and and you have some fantastic conversations. So that's that's that is great. Well, also, I appreciate I appreciate both of you coming on and sharing some of your insights. And there's still time to register, right? If you're if you're listening to this and you haven't registered yet. 

Mary Cecile Neville 21:54

There is still time to register. I will make a note. The hotel room blocks do close on August 14th. So if anyone hasn't booked their hotel room, go to IMTS .com and you can book a hotel room through Global Housing. We have, I think it's 90 hotels. Yeah, I mean, the other thing is, like you said, this is, it is the place where the industry meets. So face to face. And as we all know, it's so important. And there's so many new relationships, you know, pastime relationships, you know, growing relationships that really, you know, it happens face to face. And so it's an exciting time for us. So we hope to see everyone in September. 

Bryan Powrozek 22:36

Well, I wish you both and the whole AMT team a great show. I know you guys will put on another fantastic outing there. And Chris, I'm going to look forward to the economic update on the 6th. I plan on tuning into that to see what you all have to say. 

Podcast Outro Narrator 22:52

Thank you for tuning in. Don't forget to like us, subscribe, and share on social. To learn more about Wipfli, visit us at Wipfli .com. That's W -I -P -F -L -I dot com. Perspective changes everything.