Every figure includes its question wording and base size, with study methodology and fieldwork details included in the report.
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A finding from this report
Nearly half of next year's quality budgets are signed off in eight weeks.
Quality equipment budgets do not get approved evenly across the year. They get approved in November and December. Two in three plants then make their first purchase in the first quarter. If you sell test, measurement or inspection equipment into manufacturing, that is your selling calendar, and most of the year is the wrong half of it.
When next year's quality budget gets approved
Month the final budget is approved · n=220
November and December each account for 23% of budget approvals. Then 66% of plants make their first quality purchase of the new fiscal year in the first quarter. The window to influence a specification opens well before either.
Manufacturing professionals familiar with their company's fiscal quality equipment and services budget, n=220 for this question, fielded September 25 – October 8, 2024. Q145 asks when the plant typically has a final, approved budget for the next fiscal year; “don't know” responses removed. Months from January to August each fall between 1% and 2%. Source: myCLEARopinion Insights Hub & Quality, Annual Spending Study.
So what are they actually buying?
Sixteen categories of quality equipment and services, each with the share of plants planning to buy and a budget breakdown of its own — from coordinate measuring machines to consulting, automation and AI.
Four more numbers from the study
70%
plan to buy general-use test, measurement and inspection equipment next fiscal year — the most-planned purchase, with gages and gaging systems close behind at 69%.
43%
expect to spend more next year, by an average of 19%. Another 47% expect spending to hold flat and 9% expect a cut.
60%
of plants raising their budget name improving productivity as the motive, ahead of reducing scrap and rework at 58% and replacing worn equipment at 50%.
55%
say quality has become more important at their company over the past year, up from 48% a year earlier. Just 1% call it somewhat less important.
2024 wave, n=260 unless otherwise noted. Investment motives are asked only of plants reporting a budget increase (n=103).
The manufacturers quality professionals name
One question asks which single manufacturer a plant considers its strongest quality partner. It is open-ended — no list is shown, respondents answer from memory — so the names below are the ones professionals volunteered, not a set we put in front of them. Sixteen were named by more than one respondent.
Because the question is unaided, 60% of responses fell outside these names and 7% named no partner at all — a fragmentation finding in its own right. All brand names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners and appear here only to identify the manufacturers respondents mentioned. Their inclusion is not an endorsement, and no ranking, score or standing is implied by their listing or order.
What we're not showing here
The bulk of the 74 pages is a category-by-category budget breakdown — fourteen equipment and service categories, each getting three or four pages of its own, trended across four waves.
Pages 23–67
Budget by category
Forty-five pages covering coordinate measuring machines, form and surface measurement, gages, optical inspection, coatings thickness, product testing, materials test, non-destructive test, general-use equipment, software, consulting, services, automation and AI — each with its own spend figures. If you sell one of these, this is your section.
Page 22
The full buying list
All sixteen categories ranked by the share of plants intending to buy, trended across four waves so you can see which are gaining and which are quietly losing ground.
Pages 16–18
Budget versus reality
How last year's and this year's actual spending landed against the budget, by how much plants overran or underspent, and the full distribution behind next year's projection.
Pages 68–73
Partners, hiring and technology
Why plants rate their strongest quality partner the way they do, how they are finding and recruiting talent, and which technologies they use now versus plan to adopt.
Pages 20–21
Motives and inspection approach
Fourteen investment motives ranked, and how plants inspect at incoming, in-process and final stages — from no sampling through to every single part.
Pages 5–13
Who is doing the buying
Manufacturing operations performed, plant size, region, end product, job function, how close the respondent sits to the budget, and the business outlook behind it all.
74 pages · n=260 · 24th annual edition
Sell into the budget, not around it.
What quality departments plan to buy, how much they have, when it gets approved and what makes them spend more — asked of the people who hold the budget. Every figure carries its base size and question wording, trended across four waves.
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Who was surveyed
260
Usable completes
Manufacturing professionals familiar with their company's fiscal quality equipment and services budget. Fielded September 25 – October 8, 2024.
38%
Sit in quality management
A further 15% are in quality engineering, with the rest across corporate management, manufacturing engineering and operations.
316
Average plant headcount
Nearly three in four locations employ fewer than 250 people. Assembly is the most common operation, performed at 70% of locations, followed by machining.
Sample drawn from domestic active, qualified subscribers to Quality. Closed-ended data is tabulated in SPSS. Base sizes appear on every chart as “n=xx”; bases of 30 or more are treated as statistically reliable and bases under 15 are read directionally only, and small bases are flagged on the charts themselves. This is the 24th annual edition, with four waves shown side by side throughout.
What's in the report
74 pages · table of contents
Study Overview
3–4
Respondent Profile
5–13
Quality Practices
14–22
Spending versus projection, last year, this year and next
When do manufacturers approve their quality equipment budget?
Late in the calendar year, and sharply. 69% have a final, approved budget for the next fiscal year before the current one ends, with 23% approving in November and another 23% in December. January to August each account for 1–2%. Two-thirds then make their first purchase in the first quarter.
What quality equipment are manufacturers planning to buy?
70% plan to buy general-use test, measurement and inspection equipment such as calibration and laser systems, 69% gages and gaging systems, and 64% test, measurement and inspection services. Sixteen categories are measured in total, from coordinate measuring machines through to artificial intelligence.
Are quality budgets going up?
For about two in five plants. 43% expect to spend more next year, by an average of 19%, 47% expect spending to hold flat and 9% expect a decrease. Roughly seven in ten say this year's actual spending landed on budget.
Why do manufacturers invest in quality equipment?
Productivity first, then waste. Among plants raising their budget, 60% name improving productivity, 58% reducing scrap and rework, 50% replacing old or worn equipment and 49% increasing production capacity. Regulatory compliance comes far down the list at 28%.
Is quality becoming more important in manufacturing?
Yes, and increasingly so. 55% say quality has become more important at their company over the past year, up from 48% in the prior wave, while 43% say it holds steady and just 1% call it somewhat less important.
Does this report rank quality equipment manufacturers?
Not as a scored comparison. One open-ended question asks which single manufacturer a plant considers its strongest quality partner, and the answers are coded — so it measures spontaneous standing, not a tested brand list. If you need a full brand scorecard in this category, that is a separate piece of work we field directly.
Who should buy this report?
Metrology, test and inspection equipment manufacturers sizing next year's demand by category; software and service providers selling into quality departments; distributors and reps planning their calendar around when budgets actually close; and quality leaders benchmarking their own spend and practice against the industry.