Material Handling Equipment Manufacturers
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 1,425 material handling equipment manufacturers in the US produce a wide range of custom products including elevators, escalators and moving walkways; conveyors and industrial and commercial carousels; grain and mine elevators and conveyors; pneumatic tube conveyors; and overhead cranes, hoists, winches and monorail systems. They also produce standard products, including dollies and hand trucks; forklifts and pallet movers; industrial cradles, cherry-pickers, and bomb lifts; wheelbarrows, shopping carts and cart corrals, valet carts and dumbwaiters. As a result, the industry’s customer base is very broad.
Foreign Competition
US manufacturers compete in the domestic market with imports, which represent about 29% of the US market for material handling equipment.
System Automation and Flow Analysis
As technology advances, so too are the capabilities incorporated into material handling equipment.
Industry size & Structure
A typical material handling equipment manufacturer operates out of a single location, employs 69 workers, and generates over $30 million annually.
- The material handling equipment manufacturing industry consists of about 1,425 companies, which employ about 92,600 workers and generate about $43.7 billion annually.
- The elevator and escalator segment accounts for 11% of firms and 12% of industry revenue. The conveyor and conveying equipment segment accounts for 49% of firms and 32% of revenue. The overhead crane, hoist and monorail system segment represents 18% of firms and 23% of revenue. The segment that produces carts, stackers, lifts and cradles accounts for 22% of firms and 33% of industry revenue.
- The conveyor and conveying equipment segment is the least concentrated with half of its revenue attributed to its top 50 firms. The other three segments are highly concentrated with half of revenue attributed to the top 4 firms.
- Large companies include Material Handling Systems, Dematic, Bastian Solutions, DMW&H, Crown, Yale Materials Handling, Hyster, Americana, and divisions of Honeywell, Caterpillar, and Komatsu.
Industry Forecast
Material Handling Equipment Manufacturers Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Mar 30, 2024 - Producer Prices Ended 2023 at Record High
- Employment by material handling equipment manufacturers grew 2.1% in December compared to a year ago after rising 2.7% in the previous annual comparison, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Producer prices for material handling equipment manufacturers have been rising steadily since 2021 amid growing demand from the US manufacturing, construction, and warehouse sectors: The producer price index for the industry rose about 4% in December year over year, ending the year at an all-time high.
- The once-booming warehouse market is starting to shrink as more manufacturers and retailers are returning to a “just-in-time” lean inventory management strategy, The Wall Street Journal reported in February. As online orders surged during the pandemic, retailers and their suppliers rapidly added capacity to prevent out-of-stock orders and avoid supply chain disruptions. However, as commerce has normalized, many firms have been slashing inventories, closing warehouses, or upgrading existing facilities rather than opening new sites this year, while others are subleasing extra space, according to WSJ. In Q4 2023, US warehouse space listed for sublease reached a record high of more than 156 million square feet, more than three times the amount available in Q4 2021, according to real-estate services firm Savills. Many companies now are consolidating warehouses and upgrading to newer buildings that can accommodate more automation and require less labor.
- A study from distribution center technology company Lucas Systems finds that game mechanics can drive employee engagement and keep warehouse workers on the job, Modern Materials Handling (MMH) reported in January. The study, which surveyed 750 on-floor warehouse workers in the US and UK, found nearly 84% of workers said they were more likely to stay with a company that developed workplace competitions around their day-to-day tasks. Workers enjoy gamifying their work, embrace the benefits gamified teamwork could bring, and are eager to participate if it means earning company recognition or prizes such as company merchandise, Lucas Systems concluded. “The results point to new and innovative ways for managers to attract and keep warehouse workers,” says Lucas Systems Chief People Officer Bud Leeper. Gamification can be a differentiator for employers looking to fill the more than 250,000 warehouse worker job openings in the US right now, according to MMH.
- Amazon has surpassed UPS and FedEx as the largest shipper of parcels in the US, The Wall Street Journal reported in November. The e-commerce giant delivered more packages to US homes in 2022 than UPS, after eclipsing FedEx in 2020, and is on track to widen the gap this year, according to internal data from Amazon and people familiar with the matter, according to WSJ. Before Thanksgiving, Amazon had already delivered more than 4.8 billion packages in the US, and its internal projections predict that it will deliver around 5.9 billion by the end of 2023, according to documents viewed by WSJ. In 2022, Amazon shipped 5.2 billion packages. To stay ahead of its rivals, Amazon is overhauling its massive distribution network as part of its fast-shipping strategy creating opportunities for providers of materials handling equipment such as conveyors, racks, and other warehouse equipment.
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