Domestic manufacturers ordered $183.5 million worth of cutting tools during April, 7.9% less than during March, and 4.6% less than during April 2014. It is the third time in the four months of Q1 2015 that the Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR) has registered a decline in value.

The same up-and-down pattern from January through April has been demonstrated in the monthly U.S. Manufacturing Technology Report, which tracks new orders for machine tools and related equipment. However, the USMTO is a forward-looking index of manufacturers’ investments; the CTMR is a monthly index of manufacturing activity at the current time.

The CTMR is compiled jointly by the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and AMT – the Association for Manufacturing Technology, based on actual figures reported by participating companies. Their figures represent a majority of all cutting tool consumption by U.S. manufacturers.

The CTMR’s sponsors note that cutting tools are high-value, high-volume consumable products, and that their consumption parallels manufacturing activity in the wider economy.

“Clearly, the slowdown in the manufacturing sector has caused a decline in April,” observed Tom Haag president of USCTI. “The good news is that year-to-date performance is still above 2014 and the indicators are that it will remain as such throughout the year.”