Manufacturers and machine shops across the U.S. ordered $169 million worth of cutting tool products and technologies during May, dropping 3.5% from the April total and 4.4% from the May 2013 total. The decline in the May total follows two straight months (March, April) of rising consumption, which followed two months of decline (January, February) in the monthly Cutting Tool Market Report, issued jointly by the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute and AMT – The Association for Manufacturing Technology.

The cutting tool consumption index is based on actual totals for new product orders reported by companies participating in the CTMR program, who represent about 80% of U.S. market for such products. As a market index, it has some factors in common with the monthly U.S. Manufacturing Technology Orders report, issued by AMT.

The latest USMTO report revealed a similar two-month decline in orders.

“Overall cutting tools shipments were down in May despite many other manufacturing indicators being positive in the same time period,” observed Brad Lawton, chairman of AMT’s Cutting Tool Product Group. “This down month should be taken in context with that other data and an upward three-month trend.”