Angela Peterson
Chancelor Schulze (left) and his father, Peter Schulze, owner of Performance Plus in Oshkosh, run a machine Tuesday at the Wisconsin Machine Tool Show at the Wisconsin State Fair Park Expo Center. The show runs through Thursday.
Orders coming in fits and starts
enlarge photo 
Angela Peterson
These pieces of metal were cut from a laser machine during a demonstration by Northern Laser of Antigo.
Prospects have improved slightly, but the business climate is still grim for companies making tools and machines used in factories. For July, sales of U.S. manufacturing technology totaled $149.5 million, up 9% from June but down 55% from July 2008, according to The Association for Manufacturing Technology in McLean, Va.
"Every tool shop that I know of has laid off people or cut their work hours," said Mike Retzer, National Tooling and Machining Association Milwaukee chapter executive.
Work comes in surges and then dries up, said Retzer, controller at Strohwig Industries in Richfield.
"We were on 32-hour weeks in July, and then
The annual trade show features a wide range of manufacturing technologies and services, plus seminars on topics such as how to find business in the aerospace and wind-turbine industries.
Overall, the machine-tool industry has been decimated by the downturn in U.S. manufacturing. Earlier this year, orders for new machines were off about 80%, according to industry executives.
"For the next year or two, it could be more of the same: work coming in fits and starts," Retzer said Tuesday.
The credit crisis has put the brakes on capital spending. Many of the orders that machine-tool companies are receiving are for only a few pieces of equipment or spare parts.
"It's like a meal of chicken wings. There are a lot of them out there, but you don't get fat on them," said Anthony Jarc, sales engineer at Speedy Metals, an industrial metal supplier in New Berlin.
Exports that had been a bright spot in the machine-tool industry until mid 2008 have all but dried up.
The U.S. industry, once described by President Ronald Reagan as a "vital component of the U.S. defense base," pales in comparison with its past. The industry was ranked seventh in the world in output in 2008, behind
Long term, a lack of fair-trade policies makes it difficult for small companies to be competitive in a global market, Retzer said.
"We are in the seventh inning of losing our manufacturing in this country if we don't rally and get Washington to understand our problems," he said.
International conglomerates such as General Electric Co. have paved the way for their suppliers to do business overseas.
"But if you want to supply them with machine tools, you have to build a plant in China," Retz said.
Earlier this year, the Association for Manufacturing Technology was losing two or three member companies per month as the companies went out of business. The trade group estimated it could lose 30% of its membership this year.
There are signs of a gradual improvement in the business climate as credit thaws and companies slowly start spending again.
"I think we have been through the worst and people are hopeful," said Juli Ikonomopoulos, general manager of Shop Talk magazine, a Dubuque,
Some machine-tool companies have merged with competitors, something they wouldn't have done in the past, Ikonomopoulos said.
"When we come out of this downturn, I think the industry is going to look different but will be stronger," she added.
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