U.S. manufacturing technology orders totaled about $496 million during the month of March, says the Association for Manufacturing Technology.

That sum, as reported by companies participating in AMT's U.S. manufacturing technology orders statistical program, was up 11.3 percent from February, but down 1.4 percent from $502.89 million in the year-earlier month. With a 2012 year-to-date total of $1.36 billion, 2012 was up 12.9 percent compared with the year-earlier period.

All of the data in this report are based on the totals of activity reported by companies participating in the USMTO program.

"Manufacturing is expanding with no clear signal of a downturn in sight," says Douglas K. Woods, AMT president. "Manufacturing added 34,000 jobs in March; capacity utilization is just shy of 80 percent and USMTO order growth confounds experts as it climbed 12 percent over 2011 levels. However, remaining obstacles to future manufacturing investment include a lack of access to credit, global supply issues, encroaching industry regulations and taxes, and overall political uncertainty."

Western region manufacturing technology orders in March stood at $51.15 million, 23 percent more than the February total of $41.50 million and nearly 9 percent higher than the figure for March 2011. The $133.5 million year-to-date total was about 14 percent above the total for the same period in 2011.

The USMTO report, compiled by the trade association representing the production and distribution of manufacturing technology, provides regional and national U.S. orders data of domestic and imported machine tools and related equipment.

U.S. manufacturing technology orders also are reported on a regional basis for five geographic breakdowns of the U.S.