REGION REPORT | AMERICAS


The big stories at the start of the Biden


years are first, the post-pandemic (or post-lockdown, at least; I am not remotely claiming that the virus has gone away) recovery – one might almost say boom - which is cheering news; and second, and linked to it, the price and availability of steel, which is not cheering at all. US and Western economies have suddenly started up again, and jumping to full demand and production from the locked- down versions is far from straightforward and involves more than flipping a switch. Issues linked to it are supply chain disruptions, which are far from over yet, and as yet another knock-on, lead times, which are also not yet back to where they were. To those you can add a shortage of labour, which some are attributing to Government Covid relief packages – now either ended or soon to end, depending on state. Given all those problems it is perhaps surprising that no-one I spoke to in the industry seemed at all depressed. Let us start with steel. MHI is the trade association of the material handling and logistics industry. John Paxton is


its CEO. “Supply chain resilience has never been more important,” he said as his opening remark of its annual Industry report for 2021. Steel is a huge part of hoist manufacturers’ supply chain, and currently it has shown almost no resilience at all. Steel has joined lumber and computer chips as textbook examples of things that the pandemic has caused shortages of. Back in the early stages of Covid,


manufacturing slowed down or stopped and steel mills shut down in response to lack of orders. But as the recovery got started, mills at first did not: production began reopening weeks or months behind demand rather than ahead of it – a worldwide effect but compounded by China where it happened first. The result is a worldwide shortage of steel; indeed, for some buyers it is in practice almost unavailable. And with the record shortage goes record prices: Spot steel is so scarce that U.S. service centres are reportedly selling at a $200 to $300 per ton premium over the spot price to secure raw materials.


Iron ore has doubled in price since the pandemic; in the nine months to April 2021 hot-rolled coil prices in the US have more than tripled. Indiana hot-rolled steel was over 1500$/t in April compared to 500$/t in mid 2020. Prices continue to rise while lead times expand. What does this mean for people whose business it is to make hoists? Sky Hook, part of Idaho-based Attco Syclone, specialise in trolley-mounted hoists for the factory floor. Dusty White is their technical sales manager and his main current worry is shortage of steel, together with shortage of labour. “Business is still in the process of bouncing back after the pandemic,” he says “The most challenging adjustment we and many other manufacturers are currently dealing with is the lack of material. Lead times have been astronomical – and that is if you can even find the components you need and if the supplier will actually service you. Most suppliers at the moment are holding onto their stock to service their regular customers and are not accepting new


www.hoistmagazine.com | August 2021 | 39


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