Confidence among equipment managers held steady in August, according to the Equipment Manager Confidence Index, published by Construction Equipment. The September 1 index was 108, effectively unchanged from the 107 reported on July 1. The August 1 Index dipped to 104. The Index measures equipment manager confidence on a scale of 0 to 200, with 200 indicating full confidence that the next month will be “better.”
The Index gauges the sentiment among construction equipment users who provide opinions on confidence as well as other asset-management topics in exchange for free access to the group’s insights in a secure intelligence software platform. Participation in the Index is free for those who manage fleets of construction equipment. Interested? Sign up here.
“Equipment managers seem to have settled into the same ‘wait and see’ attitude that is affecting the nation at large,” says Rod Sutton, editorial director. “The lack of movement in either direction indicates nothing has happened to change outlooks.
“The outlook for the general economy remains in negative territory,” Sutton says.
“Although the Confidence Index is available to the industry, numerical trends for the economy, fleet health, and maintenance areas are available only to members of our Index group. For example, our data are showing movement in fleet managers’ attitudes toward disposition of machines in the used equipment market.”
Additional insights available to members:
- Overall economy health
- Current fleet health: now v. last year
- Future fleet health: now v. next year
- Equipment acquisition: better or worse to buy new
- Equipment disposition: better or worse time to sell used
- External rental: better or worse time to rent
- Peer to peer rental: better or worse time to generate revenue
- Planned maintenance: spend more or less than last year
- Rebuilds: more or less likely than last year
In addition to the Confidence Index, members of the platform also provide opinions on trends within asset management, including acquisition expectations, rental plans, and maintenance. In June, for example, the index showed that managers are not looking at the next few weeks as a better time to rent equipment. With the free access, managers can see how the trend is unfolding and compare themselves to others in the platform.
Equipment end users can have access to these insights for free. Others, such as manufacturers or dealers, may gain access to the data as observers by registering here. The next Index computation occurs at the end of the month. Equipment managers can join the group anytime this month in order to provide opinions and access month-over-month trends. Baromitr’s visualization features also allow members to analyze performance and compare how they are doing relative to others in the group.
The data-driven Index is powered by Baromitr, a scalable, peer-benchmarking platform. The Equipment Manager Confidence Index is a custom algorithm that combines multiple inputs to calculate a score from 0 to 200. The higher it is, the more confident equipment managers are.
