New U.S. orders for metal cutting, forming and fabrication machinery (manufacturing technology) totaled $732.9 million in August 2026 — a 21% increase from July and a 36.3% increase year-over-year.
The monthly increase followed an 8% decline in July and marked the third-highest monthly order total since the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT) began collecting data in 1998 for its monthly U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders Report (USMTO).
August was the sixth consecutive month that orders exceeded $500 million, the longest such streak on record.
Through the first eight months of 2026, orders totaled $4.76 billion — a 36.9% increase from the same period a year earlier. Since the current expansion began in September 2024, order values have grown nearly three times faster than unit volumes. AMT attributed the disparity in part to growing demand from the aerospace sector, which typically purchases higher-value machinery, and increased investment in equipment with added automation.
The August USMTO report emphasized the following points:
- Growth in orders from contract machine shops outpaced the overall market in August, a potentially promising sign for broader manufacturing technology demand. Historically, increased orders from job shops have preceded a general recovery in machinery demand.
- The current expansion has been driven largely by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), which typically invest more heavily in automated machinery than contract machine shops.
- AMT said that if increased demand from contract machine shops becomes a sustained trend, machinery orders for the remainder of 2026 could exceed expectations.
