Reading the FAC articles on Hyster/Yale & the ISM report brought back memories of the mid 1970s when the US had supply change issues primarily castings, forging and rolled steel products - forklift production lead times were real close to 52 weeks from order to shipment. The main issue was the closing of facilities due of new OSHA regulations. Inflation & rising fuel costs were primary issues that lead to "surcharges". Worked for Allis-Chalmers at the time & they even imposed a surcharge on the order backlog as directed by corporate - certainly a key factor that lead to their demise.. When the "hoops starting coming of the barrel" - customer order cancellation happened. in fact I recall one month where the net ITA order went negative - that month at A-C we had a good month with +36 net orders.. Dealer rental utilization decreases, used good used equipment are hard to find and the price is up from wholesalers & lease returns and dealer rental fleets are sold off to end users before scheduled retirement time. Bad things started to happen. Am not predicting a "doom and gloom" situation but saying watch closely of key signs of significant possible slow downs. but now is the time to be like that Boy Scout motto I learned way back then -"Be Prepared" - there will be some adjustment in the future. Always maintained that the first two spending cut backs in users budgets are 1.) capital expenditures and 2.) advertising and marketing programs" and the providers of appliances and new home finish items - like cabinets, solid surfaces (marble/granite tops, etc.) sales start to drop off but developers a still building "spec" home like crazy.
Just food for thought to help keep your powder dry
PS: Been retired for several years now after 41+ years in an industry that I thoroughly enjoyed as a career.
PSS; Thanks to someone at FAC that edited the headline for this post. Some times computers & cell phones are just much "smarter than me". When I screw u,p my response to any one that calls me out is - "The Devil Made Me Do It" - a great line from Flip Wilson
PSS: when People die and go to ****, where do they tell people to go???