Manufacturing Outlook for 2011, Promising Though Slight

For many manufacturers, the past few years have been about restructuring operations and maximizing procedures to create manufacturing efficiencies that keeps up with demand without more units than needed. Seeking Alpha predicts that 2011 will bode well for manufacturers, even if the uptick is small.

The story indicated that “The U.S. Investment Index, which measures domestic spending expectations among manufacturing executives, found 80 percent expecting more capital investment by their companies in 2011 than in 2010. That was up from the most recent cyclical low of 47 percent in the September 2009 survey.”

There was a rise in research and development (R&D), according to 70 percent of those polled in the survey — a drastic improvement from the 49 percent executives anticipating R&D investments in Sept. 2009.

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM), a major industrial trade group, also stated that ” Manufacturing sales should rise by 5.6 percent in 2011, with sales growth in the services sector hitting 3.4 percent compared to just 0.2 percent  in 2010. On the negative side, ISM’s survey director, Norbert Ore, warned that a large portion of the growth in sales revenue would likely be the result of price increases, not gains in volume.”

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