Figures are down everywhere: the German supplier industry suffered significant losses in terms of sales volume, production, and capacity utilisation last year. This was reported by Christian Vietmeyer, spokesperson for the supplier industry association Arbeitsgemeinschaft Zulieferindustrie (ArGeZ, Düsseldorf, Germany; www.argez.de) at the annual press conference. Production fell by 4.8% across all sectors, which led to a decline in sales of around 3.2% to EUR 240 bn. The very weak demand in numerous sectors also caused capacity utilisation to fall continuously over the course of the year. On average, it was only 76.6% in 2023. In 2022, this figure was still at 81%.

Around 9,000 supplier companies are organised in the ArGeZ through their respective eight industry associations. The production spectrum includes steel and metal processing as well as cast components, but also rubber and technical textiles. 

Manufacturers of technical plastic parts, which are represented by the ArGeZ member association TecPart (Frankfurt, Germany; www.tecpart.de/en), were not able to escape the general downward trend, either. On the contrary: their sales volume fell by an above-average 6.3% and production also dropped by 7.8% – more strongly than in the steel and metal processing or aluminium sectors. Even capacity utilisation reached a new low of 71.75%. Compared with the already low 76.6% of 2022, this was a further drop of 2.9%.

TecPart managing director Michael Weigelt was correspondingly sober, stating that impulses from the political sphere are urgently needed. He strongly criticised the plans for the EU end-of-life vehicle regulation.

In his opinion, the supplier industry will “foreseeably not be able to cover” the usage quotas for plastics recyclates stipulated in the regulation: “We are walking into a massive shortage of recyclates with our eyes wide open,” Weigelt criticised, adding that the required quantity of 4 mn t of recyclates is not achievable in Germany nor in the EU as a whole. He therefore called for “more realism” from the EU, especially when it comes to ensuring the competitiveness of the European automotive industry against competition from Asia and the US.

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According to ArGeZ spokesperson Vietmeyer, a major problem for the entire supplier industry is the continued low level of purchase reliability. Large customers in particular ordered significantly more in their production forecast notices than they actually purchased.

“The volatility of orders and the level of cancellations are still causing problems for us,” Vietmeyer emphasised, while Weigelt added that some corporate customers are abusing the supplier industry as a “buffer zone” for their own demand uncertainty.

At least there appears to be an economic silver lining on the horizon. In March, the order and production situation turned slightly positive, as Weigelt reported, in reference to the latest industry figures from economic researchers at the ifo Institute, adding that capacity utilisation also increased slightly along with it.

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Nevertheless, the TecPart managing director did not venture any predictions on how sustainable this trend reversal would be. Instead, Weigelt commented wryly, “It couldn’t go much lower than before.”