Insight

Welcome to the 2024 Janus Perspective, a unique feature that includes a wide cross section of global fastener business leaders. Named after the Roman God 'Janus' – who had the ability to look to the future and to the past, and was often depicted with having two faces – this feature brings together thought leaders from every facet of the industry, from around the world, to give us their retrospective on 2023, as well as prospects and challenges for 2024.

Andrew Kalnow, CEO

A year ago this time, the big concerns of many American business, including us at National Machinery, were still rising inflation and an impending recession of some magnitude. Fast forward to today, while worries still linger, the long forecasted recession has not appeared on ‘this side of the pond’ and, if it does, the strong consensus is that it will be a forgiving ‘soft landing’.

The American consumer has largely proven to be resilient in the face of continuing inflation and high interest rates. Perhaps this is because most economists and consumers alike believe inflation will continue to abate and interest rates ultimately will fall.

Of course, you will recall in 2023 the American automotive industry suffered a long and bitter strike by the UAW (United Automobile Workers) resulting in a 25% wage increase over four years. This bad news for the ‘domestic big three’ was compounded by Tesla smelling blood and lowering its prices.

Interestingly, nowadays mostly all automakers have cut back the expectations for EV sales in the American market. The local Ford dealer in Tiffin has had a row of unsold Mustang Mach-E vehicles for more than a couple of months. With petrol prices continuing to moderate at pumps in America, combined with too little mileage distance per tank on an EV, and limited enroute charging stations, the American consumer who doesn’t already own an EV is not too enthused about going electric at this time. Also, the comparatively higher ‘sticker prices’ of EVs compared to similar ICE vehicles is a further hurdle to cross.

At National Machinery 2023 was a strong year and 2024 is expected to be higher yet in revenue and profit. Sales levels in America are clearly the driver, while the rest of the world is notably slower. We benefit from a strong domestic customer base of both smaller and larger size manufacturers that more than ever are interested in buying new machines – particularly when it is coupled with a very strong field service and support network. They believe that new equipment, coupled with judicious investment in rebuilds and good maintenance programs, are the main solutions to addressing the endemic problem of labour shortages – while boosting productivity. 

Outside of a few new cold forming factories by transplants over the years it has been rare for US companies to add new facility capacity. Instead, M&A has been the ticket for expansion. Unfortunately, this generally has been detrimental to the condition of the existing fleet of cold formers and other equipment, as money spent on acquisitions too often is at the expense of modernisation and good machine maintenance. National’s business model of supplying high performance machines, coupled with reliable local service, has recently earned us the opportunity to equip a totally new cold forming factory with FORMAXs.

At the 2022 Düsseldorf wire^® show, National Machinery unveiled a new smaller diameter combined heading and threading machine, aptly named the Lean Header + Threader. This new machine is very economic for the manufacturer, as it combines the heading and threading process on a given part. It requires only one operator and is a space saver too. This model has proved very popular and we have received a large multi-year, multiple machine order from a leading European fastener maker for this machine model.

 This year at the 2024 wire^® show we will exhibit the FXH Lightning, a very high speed FORMAX header, which has already had initial installations in customer factories.

Finally, the year 2024 marks a very special year for National Machinery as we will be celebrating our 150^th anniversary in late September. There will be a week long celebration with three days reserved specifically for customers. In addition to an open house, there will be various educational seminars and other events.