Bearing Industry Hard Hit by Industrial Inventory Replenishment Slowdown

In a recent review of manufactured product order lead times in the U.S., Purchasing magazine found the bearing industry hard-hit by the recent slowdown in customer purchases for inventory replenishment.

The findings show what most bearing manufacturers and distributors have long pointed out -- so-called "lean inventory" programs are simply pushing inventory back down the supply chain toward manufacturers.

In April, bearing manufacturers and distributors reported 50% of orders could ship immediately, with no delay or lead time, including orders for specialty bearings. 41% of orders shipped within 2-5 weeks, with the majority in the 2 week timeframe. Only 4% would wait 6-10 weeks, and 4% 11-20 weeks. No orders were reported as taking longer than 21 weeks to ship.

The average order fill lead time in April was 2.7 weeks for all types of bearings, down sharply from 3.4 weeks in May and indicating how quickly inventory built up as orders dropped off.

Antifriction bearings are the third-hardest-hit of all industrial products over the past year in terms of inventory buildup. More importantly, bearings are the only manufactured product showing up on the hardest-hit list; all of the other items are bulk commodity raw materials such as titanium and nickel ingots.




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