NAICS 33392Industry · 5-digitnational market

Material handling equipment manufacturing

SoftwareManufacturing Execution & Plant Automation 333

This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing material handling equipment. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 339
Under 10 employeesA: 39%
Establishments · USA: 1,616
Employment · USA: 100,116
Payroll · USA: $7.2B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–47923%

5–95316%

10–195717%

20–496920%

50–994914%

100–199216%

200–49982%

500+31%

Of 339 Canadian establishments with employees, 39% have fewer than ten — weighted toward mid-sized establishments.

Where they areA

Ontario17953%

Quebec8425%

British Columbia3611%

Alberta216%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Manufacturing, US · opened 2020

86.2%

1 year

70.8%

3 years

58.4%

5 years

45.3%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 333, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

national competitionmedium capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 333 Machinery manufacturing

Niche machinery builders hold defensible positions through application knowledge. Aftermarket parts and service are where the margin sits.

Who sets the price: Specification and engineering rather than a market price.
The software it runs on: Engineer-to-order ERP, product lifecycle management, service and parts.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 3339 Other general-purpose machinery manufacturing covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 3339

Accessibility Lift and Material-Handling Equipment MakerOne thing must be true

binding constraint: distribution

A residual group: pumps and compressors, material-handling equipment (conveyors, cranes, lift trucks, elevators and lifts), and an "all other" code holding scales, welding gear, packaging machines and more. It is large — 1,097 Canadian establishments, 520 of them with fewer than ten people — and it is not one market. Pumps and compressors and the all-other code were not examined. The niche screened is the one with a visible Canadian success: accessibility lifts and home elevators. Savaria, of Laval, Quebec, reported 2025 revenue of C$913.5M, up 5.3%, a 38.7% gross margin and adjusted EBITDA of C$186.3M — 20.4%, with its Accessibility segment at 22.3% [A]. An ageing population buying stairlifts and porch lifts is a good demand story, and the products — a rail, a carriage, a motor and a controller — are not beyond a competent fabricator. The cut is how they reach the customer. Savaria's own description is that it sells through "a sales network of dealers worldwide and direct sales offices" [A]. A lift is an elevating device: it is sold, installed, inspected and serviced locally, in a regulated trade, usually paid for with help from an insurer, a veterans' programme or a home-modification grant that the dealer knows how to claim. The dealer therefore chooses the brand, and chooses on parts availability, installer training and who answers the phone when a customer is stuck between floors. A new manufacturer needs those dealers city by city, and each already has a full line from a supplier earning twenty points of margin with which to keep them. The same pattern — sold through integrators and dealers, not to end users — holds for conveyors and lift trucks, but that was not researched. Plant software is screened separately.

NAICS 33395 vendors named12 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

Sold across the wider branch

Vertical softwareScreenedfiled at 333 Machinery manufacturing

Manufacturing Execution & Plant AutomationExecution decides

binding constraint: distribution

Incumbent Siemens Opcenter, Rockwell (Plex), SAP Digital Manufacturing

MES is sold and implemented through system integrators, not directly — the integrator relationship is the distribution channel and it takes years to build. The software also has to speak to whatever PLC and SCADA estate is already installed, which favours the vendors who supplied it. Anchored at the 333 subsector because MES spans all of discrete manufacturing rather than any one industry group. Sourced update: Rockwell's Software & Control segment grew 9% to $2,383M while lifting operating margin from 24.2% to 29.7%. An entrant is attacking a business that is compounding margin, which is the least promising moment to attack one.

NAICS 3333 vendors named3 sourced figuresOpen →

Catalogued categories — named, not analysed

Discrete manufacturing ERP SaaS 31-33

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Who works here

The occupations employed in Manufacturing, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Aircraft assemblers and aircraft assembly inspectors One industry 91.3%

Supervisors, assembly and fabrication One industry 88.3%

Machine operators and related workers in pulp and paper production and wood processing and manufacturing One industry 86.1%

Managers in manufacturing and utilities One industry 84.4%

Machine operators and related workers in chemical, plastic and rubber processing One industry 82.7%

Mechanical, electrical and electronics assemblers and inspectors One industry 82.3%

Machine operators and related workers in food, beverage and associated products processing One industry 79.1%

Machine operators and related workers in mineral and metal products processing and manufacturing One industry 77.7%

Furniture, wood, plastic and other products assemblers, finishers and inspectors One industry 73.9%

Machine operators and related workers in textile, fabric, fur and leather products processing and manufacturing One industry 70.8%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Other technical trades Across the economy 20%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 16.3%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 15.2%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 11.6%

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 10.7%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 9.6%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 9.2%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 8.3%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 7.7%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 4.8%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

1 row sits directly beneath 33392. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
333920	Material handling equipment manufacturing	339	screened at 3339

Alongside it, under 3339 Other general-purpose machinery manufacturing

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
33391	Pump and compressor manufacturing	119	screened at 3339
33399	All other general-purpose machinery manufacturing	639	screened at 3339