Roughly 85 establishments operated in this industry in the late 1990s. They employed almost 17,500 people in 2000.
In 2001, Mercury Marine Group of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, was by far the industry leader with $20 billion in sales and 6,000 employees. Detroit Diesel Group of Detroit was second with more than $10 billion in sales and 3,000 employees.
In 2001 factory shipments of farm equipment (not including sales of consumer lawn mowers) from original equipment manufacturers totaled $6.2 billion. Of that total, harvest machinery and parts accounted for $2.1 billion; planting, seeding, and fertilizing machinery, $986.2 million; haying machinery, $804.8 million; farm dairy machines, sprayers, dusters, elevators, and farm blowers, $787.9 million; and plows, harrows, rollers, pulverizers, cultivators, and weeders, $515.9 million.
This entry discusses establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing lawn mowers, lawn and garden tractors, and other lawn and garden equipment used for home lawn and garden care. It also includes establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing snow blowers and throwers for residential use.
In the late 1990s, low interest rates and a booming American economy fueled residential, public, and commercial construction in the United States, which in turn boosted demand for construction machinery and equipment. After experiencing its eighth year of consecutive growth in 1998, when the value of shipments reached $24 billion, the construction machinery industry began to weaken slightly.
Mining machinery and equipment manufacturers experienced a downturn in the late 1990s. Diminishing demand for domestically produced minerals fueled the initial decline, decreasing mining activity substantially.
The health of the oil and gas field machinery industry is inextricably tied to capital expenditures in the oil and gas extraction industries whose health in turn is dependent on the price of oil. Fortunes of the oil industry are also very cyclical.
The elevator and moving stairway industry manufactures a series of products designed for the vertical transportation of both materials and passengers. Machines manufactured for the exclusive purpose of moving materials, such as freight elevators and automobile lifts, comprise a small niche of the wide-ranging materials handling market.
Conveying systems have been an integral part of mining operations for nearly a century, but manufacturing industries have also become dependent on them. Regulations mandated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) limited human exposure to certain harmful materials, requiring more extensive machine automation.
The overhead traveling crane, hoist, and monorail system industry includes a diverse assortment of products that fit within a narrowly defined segment of the materials handling equipment industry. Not to be confused with various types of mobile cranes used in construction projects, overhead cranes are variously structured machines that "travel" along a runway structure or pair of tracks located above the work floor of a plant or factory.
The metal cutting industry is concerned with the removal of metal from a larger piece of metal to create a desired shape. Metal cutting, also referred to as machining, is performed on most manufactured items.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 287 establishments operated in this category for part or all of 2001.
This category covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing industrial patterns.
This category covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing cutting tools, machinists' precision measuring tools, and attachments and accessories for machine tools and for other metalworking machinery, not elsewhere classified. Establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing hand tools, except power-driven types, are classified in the cutlery, hand tools, and general hardware industries.
This industry includes establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing power-driven handtools, such as drills and drilling tools, battery-powered (cordless) handtools, pneumatic and snagging grinders, and electric hammers. Establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing metal cutting type and metal forming type machines (including home workshop tools), which are not supported in the hands of an operator are classified in SIC 3541: Machine Tools, Metal Cutting Types and SIC 3542: Machine Tools, Metal Forming Types; and those primarily manufacturing power-driven heavy construction or mining handtools are classified in a range of construction machinery and equipment industries.
This category covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing rolling mill machinery and processing equipment for metal production, such as cold forming mills, structural mills, and finishing equipment.
According to projections from Manufacturing and Distribution USA, 388 establishments operated in this category in 2004, up from a projected 368 the previous year. Industry-wide employment was expected to decline to less than 16,000 workers, and total shipment values were expected to decline to less than $4 billion.
According to the Annual Survey of Manufactures, industry-wide employment totaled 20,755 workers in 2001, receiving a payroll of more than $982 million. Of these employees, some 11,894 were production workers, putting in more than 24 million hours to earn wages of approximately $449 million.
The textile machinery industry is closely tied with American consumer demand for textile products, including clothing and home furnishing fabrics. With the steady growth of the economy during the late 1990s, the textile machinery industry remained healthy, driven by consumer spending and a booming market for higher quality products.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau's Statistics of U.S.
The United States is the world's leading producer of paper-making machinery. According to the U.S.
This category covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing machinery and equipment used by the printing and bookbinding trades, including printing presses, bookbinding machines, typesetting and photoengraving equipment, and a variety of specialized tools for the printing trades.
The food products machinery industry and the processed food industry enjoy a very close relationship. This is illustrated by the presence of engineering departments within large food processing corporations.
This classification covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing special industry machinery, not elsewhere classified, such as equipment for smelting and refining, cement making, clay working, glass making, incandescent lamp making, leather working, paint making, printed circuit boards, semiconductors, rubber working, cigar and cigarette making, tobacco working, shoe making, stone working machinery, industrial sewing machines, and automotive maintenance machinery and equipment. In the past, cotton ginning machinery was also included.
This category covers firms primarily engaged in manufacturing pumps and related equipment for general industrial, commercial or household use, including domestic water and sump pump manufacturers. It does not cover manufacturers of fluid power pumps or motors (SIC 3594: Fluid Power Pumps & Motors); manufacturers of measuring and dispensing pumps for gasoline service stations (SIC 3586: Measuring and Dispensing Pumps);non-laboratory-use vacuum pumps (SIC 3563: Air and Gas Compressors); laboratory vacuum pumps (SIC 3821: Laboratory Apparatus and Furniture); or motor vehicle pumps (SIC 3714: Motor Vehicle Parts and Accessories).
The ball and roller bearing industry is very large, but mature. It affects everything from the production of space shuttles to household appliances, automobiles, dentist drills, roller skates, and computer disk drives.
Although air and gas compressors are vital to scores of commercial and industrial products and activities, compressor manufacturing is a small and mature industry within the industrial machinery sector. Products from this $5 billion industry are used in the chemical industry, steel mills and blast furnaces, energy-related extraction industries, pipelines and well-drilling, and general construction.
U.S. industry depends on the low-pressure, high-volume movement of air.
According to the Annual Survey of Manufactures, this industry employed 27,923 workers in 2001, with a payroll of $1.2 billion. Nearly 15,000 employees worked in production, earning more than $508 million.
Firms in this industry are primarily engaged in manufacturing industrial process furnaces, ovens, induction and dielectric heating equipment and related devices. Products not included in the classification include bakery ovens (SIC 3556: Food Products Machinery); cement, wood and chemical kilns (SIC 3559: Special Industry Machinery, Not Elsewhere Classified); cremating ovens (SIC 3569: General Industrial Machinery and Equipment, Not Elsewhere Classified); and laboratory furnaces and ovens (SIC 3821: Laboratory Apparatus and Furniture).
The Mechanical Power Transmission Equipment, Not Elsewhere Classified, industry is comprised of companies that manufacture mechanical power transmission equipment and parts for industrial machinery. Products include ball joints, pulleys, bearings, drive chains, sprockets, shafts, couplings, and other parts.
Companies in this industry produce miscellaneous manufacturing equipment. The plethora of industry offerings includes items such as altitude testing chambers, hydraulic bridge machinery, industrial centrifuges, cremating ovens, industrial fluid filters, swimming pool heaters, fire hoses, hydraulic jacks, and fire sprinkler systems.
The industry encompasses companies primarily engaged in manufacturing electronic computers.
This classification covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing computer storage devices.
A form of so-called thin-client computing, a computer terminal acts as an interface between a user and a system server that has a CPU and storage capacity. Typically, a network of terminals is attached to the server.
Amid difficult economic times, computer peripherals suffered overall declines in the early 2000s, along with the rest of the computer industry. While overall shipment values fell slightly from $12.9 billion in 1999 to $12.4 billion in 2000, they dropped sharply to $10.6 billion in 2001.
This industry covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing point-of-sale devices, fund transfer devices, and other calculating and accounting machines, except electronic computers. Included are electronic calculating and accounting machines that must be paced by operator intervention, even when augmented by attachments.
This industry had many diverse product offerings, including time clocks, stapling machines, binding machines, collating and sorting machines, forms handling equipment, address labeling machines, automatic list finders, embossing machines, and ticket counters. Sales of miscellaneous office machines fluctuated with other economic trends.
This industry consists of establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing automatic vending machines and coin-operated mechanisms for such machines.
The largest product group in this industry is washers and extractors, which account for almost 40 percent of sales. Commercial dryers and presses make up about 16 and 11 percent of output, respectively.
This category includes establishments primarily engaged in the manufacture of commercial or industrial refrigeration equipment or domestic, commercial, or industrial air-conditioning units. Other equipment manufactured under this classification includes warm air furnaces, humidifiers and dehumidifiers, soda fountains, and beer dispensing machines.
In the 1990s, multi-pump units, which offer several grades of gasoline from the same pump, accounted for about 22 percent of industry sales. More traditional single-pump units still held a 19 percent share of the market.
The miscellaneous service machine industry is highly fragmented. Some of its diverse products include cafeteria equipment, sewer cleaning equipment, water treatment equipment, industrial vacuum cleaners, car washing machinery, janitorial carts, and floor sanding machines.
Carburetors, pistons, intake and exhaust valves, and piston rings account for a relatively small and declining portion of the broader automotive and machine engine parts industries, which together are valued at more than $150 billion. After declining significantly during the early 1990s, the value of shipments began to grow in the late 1990s, increasing from $2.73 billion in 1997 to $3.27 billion in 2000.
This classification covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders and actuators for use in fluid power systems.
Manufacturers in this industry produce pumps and drives for hydraulic and pneumatic power mechanisms, primarily for use in industrial and aerospace applications. Because fluid power devices can exert massive amounts of controlled pressure, they are commonly utilized to power aircraft landing gear, industrial presses and lifts, heavy earth-moving equipment, and other heavy-duty equipment.
Vehicle and industrial scales, which are used primarily in factories and truck weighing stations to measure amounts of goods to be packaged or delivered, comprise the largest segment of this industry, accounting for roughly 42 percent of U.S. shipments.
This industry is made up of firms that manufacture miscellaneous machinery and equipment not elsewhere classified. It also encompasses establishments primarily engaged in producing or repairing machinery and equipment on a job or order basis for other companies.