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In 2023, machinery manufacturers were still contending with a linked set of constraints: hard-to-source materials and components, too few workers, and costly, delayed freight. The pandemic was no longer the immediate disruption, but production could still stall when a single required part was unavailable. These are historical conditions reported in May 2023, not a description of manufacturing in 2026.
Why did manufacturers still face bottlenecks in 2023?
For equipment makers, supply-chain recovery did not mean every part was available when needed. Successful Farming reported that shortages extended beyond semiconductors to plastics, rubber used in tracks, wire harnesses for off-road machinery, and chemicals used in foam cushions. The report associated wire-harness disruption with the war in Ukraine and foam-input interruptions with weather-related shutdowns at plants in Texas and Louisiana. These were reported examples, not a claim that every manufacturer or product line was affected in the same way. Successful Farming, May 10, 2023.
That dependence on a complete set of components made partial improvement insufficient. Curt Blades, AEM senior vice president for agriculture services and forestry, put it this way: “Here’s what matters: You still need 100% of the parts to ship a combine,” he told Successful Farming.
How large was the supply-chain problem?
A separate Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) survey offers an industry snapshot, not a census. AEM surveyed 179 equipment-manufacturing executives in October 2022, including 112 original equipment manufacturers and 56 component manufacturers. In its December 15, 2022 release, AEM said 98% of respondents still faced supply-chain issues and 58% said conditions were continuously worsening. Respondents reported an average year-to-date production loss of 12% and forecast an 8.2% average production loss for 2023. They also reported average year-to-date profit-margin losses of 8.6% and forecast 6.4% for 2023. The first set of figures describes reported results through the survey period; the 2023 figures were forecasts, not confirmed outcomes. AEM’s survey release.
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AEM identified workforce shortages and access to intermediate components as the two leading disruption factors in the survey, while six in ten respondents said they still had recruitment and retention problems. This describes the equipment-manufacturing respondents, not all manufacturers or all industries. AEM.
What did materials and shipping cost in the report?
The following figures are historical examples reproduced by Successful Farming in its May 2023 story. They are not current commodity quotations. The story did not specify a separate pricing methodology or market benchmark for these series.
| Input | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crude oil, per barrel | $60 | $40 | $70 | $100 | $90 |
| Cold-rolled steel raw materials, per ton | $600 | $640 | $1,230 | $1,340 | $700 |
| Raw rubber, per ton | $140 | $120 | $150 | $160 | $140 |
| Raw plastic, per ton | $210 | $270 | $370 | $430 | $370 |
Source for every value in the table: Successful Farming, May 10, 2023. The series show that not every input moved in lockstep: for example, the report’s 2023 steel figure was below its 2022 value, while its crude-oil figure remained above the 2019 figure.
Shipping also remained slower and more expensive than the 2019 comparison in that report. Successful Farming said Europe-to-East-Coast transit took four weeks in 2019, rose to ten weeks during 2020–2022, and was six weeks in 2023. It reported container freight costs of $4,500 at the start of 2020, a peak of $12,500 during 2021–2022, and $10,200 in 2023. The article does not define a particular container size or rate basis, so these should be read as its reported examples rather than universal freight quotes. Successful Farming, May 10, 2023.
How did labor shortages limit production?
Hiring challenges affected factory capacity as well as freight operations. Corey Claussen, president of Custom Roto-Mold, described the direct production effect: “People equals production capacity. It turned into a point where we didn’t have enough people to handle all the demand,” he told Successful Farming. In AEM’s October 2022 survey, six in ten respondents reported ongoing recruitment and retention difficulties, with workforce shortages among the leading disruption factors.
Successful Farming also reported agricultural labor figures attributed to Miranda Driver of CalAgJobs and Purdue University: one job seeker for every two open agricultural positions, 40% of new agricultural jobs unfilled each year, and a forecast of 59,400 annual agricultural job openings during 2020–2025. The story does not link to the underlying CalAgJobs or Purdue publications, so these should be treated as figures reported by the 2023 article, not independently verified primary-source statistics. Successful Farming, May 10, 2023.
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What responses did manufacturers consider?
The reporting points to several operational levers, each addressing a different part of the problem. It does not establish that one approach works best for every manufacturer.
- Reduce supplier concentration where feasible. Eric Raby, senior vice president of Claas for the Americas, said, “We’ve historically been working with singular vendors,” he told Successful Farming. Broadening a supplier base may reduce dependence on one source, but the story does not quantify the cost or feasibility of doing so.
- Plan around critical components. A machine cannot ship if a necessary part is missing, even when other inputs are available. The AEM survey likewise highlighted access to intermediate components as a major disruption factor.
- Recruit, retain, and train workers. AEM’s 2023 trends material identified employee training and development as an important workforce response area; training is a longer-term capacity measure, not an immediate substitute for missing staff. AEM’s 2023 trends overview.
- Manage freight lead times and cost. The reported route and container examples show why transport planning mattered alongside sourcing and staffing, though the figures are not universal rates or forecasts.
Customer feedback was another way companies could stay attuned to the disruption. Raby said, “We stay as close to the customers as we can, that’s how we learn,” he told Successful Farming.
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What should buyers and readers take from the 2023 figures?
The evidence describes a specific historical period, centered on U.S. equipment and agricultural machinery manufacturers, with a Europe-to-East-Coast shipping example. AEM’s numbers come from a defined group of executives and include forecasts; the commodity, labor, and freight figures are examples reproduced in a May 2023 news report. They help explain why production and delivery remained constrained in 2023, but they should not be used to estimate current prices, present-day lead times, or labor availability.
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