The market research firm says the final quarter of 2010 proved "solid" for US industrial manufacturers, with performance expected to continue at similar or stronger levels into the new financial year.
In particular, rail and semiconductors are singled out for mention as likely areas of strong spending over the first three months of the 2011 fiscal calendar.
"Because of the recession, companies have been forced to take a very cautious approach to spending and are only now beginning to feel comfortable with increasing their expenditures," the analyst says.
Despite this, from a slow start to 2010, spending ramped up towards the final months.
Insight from Industrial Info Resources is compiled from more than 1,000 interviews each day and builds on 26 years of profiling the heavy manufacturing industries.
