Summer Maintenance Shutdowns Drive Spike in Repair Service Sourcing

Welcome to Thomas Insights — every day, we publish the latest news and analysis to keep our readers up to date on what’s happening in industry. Sign up here to get the day’s top stories delivered straight to your inbox.

This week’s Thomas Index Report is sponsored by Shaw Machine Co., a Native American- and veteran-owned, HubZone-certified business offering machinery rebuilding and repairing services.

Welcome to the Thomas Index Report for the week of July 20.     

As a quick reminder before we start today’s Index Report, you can find all of our COVID-19-related business reopening resources and register your industrial business as a COVID-19 Response Supplier by visiting Thomasnet.com/COVID-19.

This week, we’re taking a closer look into sourcing activity for repair services.

Searches for repair services on the Thomasnet.com platform are up 246% year-over-year, and 265% over Q2 averages.

As manufacturers nationwide prepare for annual planned summer shutdowns and preventative maintenance, they’re reaching out to suppliers who offer repair services across a diverse range of production machinery and manufacturing tech.

But this year, in light of the far-reaching impacts of COVID-19, some facilities are actually skipping or adjusting their usual shutdown plans in order to make up for lost time and get production back on track after virus-related delays and staff reductions.

One major example is the automotive industry. To keep production on schedule to launch new car models in the fall, GM said they’d keep their plants running through the month of July, which is when they usually plan annual shutdowns. Ford is expected to utilize a rolling shutdown schedule with shorter maintenance and repair periods to keep production on track for the release of their new 2021 F-150 model. But in some cases, even rescheduling shutdowns won’t be enough to keep model release timing as planned. Some car debuts have been pushed up to a year to accommodate COVID-19 related manufacturing delays.

Image Credit: Thomas Index Report