Go on…you know you want to

Many investment decisions are still on hold but machinery manufacturers are trying to tempt customers to take the plunge as they continue to make their ranges more productive and more user friendly.

There is not quite so much of a world stone industry to make its way to Verona for the Marmomacc exhibition this month (26-29 September) and from the UK and Ireland, at least, the message coming through to NSS is that it is largely only those stone processors actively looking for something in particular who are planning to make the journey to Italy. Fewer are going just to keep up with the latest developments.

It is understandable. With stone companies working flat out to find and win what work there is and earning less from it when they do find it, time is at a premium and there is not too much optimism that improvements are imminent.

Nevertheless, there are still companies willing to make investments to give them the edge when it comes to bidding for work. And there are those companies that have put investment decisions on hold for the past four years that are reaching the point where they have few alternatives left to replacing their ageing machinery.

As Pat Sharkey of Pat Sharkey Engineering said when he announced that he would be representing a wider range of machinery suppliers in future (see NSS July issue), there’s a pent up demand.

“Things have been on hold so long now that when this thing does come to an end there will be a lot of machinery wanted. We came to the conclusion that we needed to be able to react when that happens,” he told NSS.

Of course, the machinery suppliers are not sitting back and waiting to see what happens. They continue to innovate, making their machines quieter, faster, more efficient and, yes, often less expensive than they have been previously.

One thing all the companies in the UK supplying machinery agree on is that when customers place an order they generally want the machines straight away. And few want to tie up money in machinery bought speculatively – for many, cash flow is proving hard enough to control as it is.

But all is not doom and gloom. Companies are investing in processing plant and those selling it report bright spots, even if the overall market is not as lively as it was.

In this issue, NSS takes its annual look at what leading machinery suppliers in the UK and their principals have on offer.