Buyers survey confirms

As part of its increasing range of member services the PPMA undertook its first Buyers Survey earlier this year which indicates a UK spend of almost £1bn (Euro 1.43bn) this year on new processing and packaging machinery. More than 200 major end users were contacted and asked about their buying intentions for the coming year as well as reasons behind their investment decisions. Companies covered all the major product sectors.

The key findings were:

there is substantial spare production capacity in many factories. Utilisation was around 70% for both processing and packaging machinery lines. This could indicate a negative impact on machinery investment. On a more optimistic note, almost half of those contacted said capacity utilisation would increase during the rest of 2003.

the range of investment in this capital equipment was generally between £100k and £10m, with the majority spend range between £l00k and £500k.

the outlook of those surveyed about increased investment was very mixed; 35% said they would increase expenditure year-on-year in 2003; 25% said they would spend the same, while 40% said they would spend less. However, there was no indication of the size of spend so a few bigger companies spending more might offset those smaller companies spending less, as the general trend is for an increase in overall spend compared with 2002.

important investment criteria were identified as increasing capacity (60%) - this is slightly odd given that the first key finding was there was substantial spare capacity already available; improving efficiency (65%) and replacing old equipment (60%)

75% of equipment purchased will be new, with rebuilt or retrofitting accounting for a further 20%, and the remaining 5% accounted for by used machinery

sources of machinery stood almost equally between imported and UK manufactured equipment

processing equipment and end-of-line machines featured as the most popular likely targets for investment during 2003.