ModelVersion 0.1Compiling data
OEM Disclosure Scorecard
Does the OEM publish lead times, list prices, backlog in dollars, capacity in units and delivery performance? Scored from observable facts, source beside every cell, right of reply before publication.
12 of 90Cells scored Yes across 18 OEMs and five disclosure criteria, filings and OEM sites checked September 2026. Public headline as of September 10, 2026.
- 10 of 18
- OEMs disclosing backlog in dollars, Q2 2026 filings (Generac for data center products only). Nine did not.
- 8 of 18
- OEMs reporting orders and revenue, or the ratio itself, so a book-to-bill can be computed
- 1
- OEM that stopped disclosing backlog during the year: Vertiv, from its Q1 2026 release, last figure $15.0B at December 31 2025
- 2
- OEMs publishing a dated LV lead-time schedule: Schneider Electric (monthly guide) and Siemens (as republished). Rockwell publishes none.
What it covers
The same eighteen listed OEMs as the Book-to-Bill League Table, scored on five observable facts: publishes a dated lead-time schedule; publishes list prices; reports backlog in dollars; reports capacity in units; reports delivery performance against quote. Each cell is yes, no or partial, with the document that supports it and the date. No weighting, no composite score.
- Cadence
- Semi-annual, after the Q2 and Q4 filing seasons, with corrections as OEMs respond
- Compiled from
- OEM websites and lead-time pages; investor relations releases and analyst presentations; 8-K, 10-Q and 10-K filings on sec.gov; published price lists where they exist
- Delivered as
- Web page, CSV
- Updates
- Semi-annual
- Onboarding
- None needed
- Support
- Right-of-reply correspondence, corrections@open-factory.com
- Tier
- Free
Who uses it and what it decides
- Buyers choosing between OEMsWhich vendors tell a planner what they need (a dated lead time, a price, a backlog) and which make them ask a distributor.
- OEM investor relations and communicationsWhere their disclosure ranks against peers, cell by cell, before the next release.
- Analysts and journalistsWhich backlog figures exist in filings and which are being inferred.
Methodology
What the headline is
10 of 18 listed electrical, power and cooling OEMs put a dollar figure on their backlog in the Q2 2026 filing season: Powell ($2.4B), Caterpillar ($72.1B), GE Vernova Electrification ($40.6B), Siemens Energy Grid Technologies (EUR 51bn), Hitachi Energy (10.3 trillion yen), ABB Electrification ($13.7B), Trane ($12.1B), Johnson Controls ($21.0B), Eaton (about $24.1B, in the 10-Q text rather than the release) and Generac (about $1.6B, data center products only). Eight did not: Vertiv (stopped after Q4 2025), Schneider Electric (“record backlog”, no number), Cummins, Carrier, nVent (Q1 only), Modine, Hubbell and Atkore. The rows, with the filing for each, are in book-to-bill-q2-2026.csv.
The headline is a count of filings, not a judgment. It changes each filing season.
What it is compiled from
Version 0.1 is observation only. Five cells per OEM:
- Publishes a dated lead-time schedule. Yes: Schneider Electric (monthly, 124 rows). Partial: Siemens, whose LV bulletins circulate through distributors and are republished by VAWN. No: Rockwell and every other OEM in the set.
- Publishes list prices. Checked against the OEM’s own site. In the adjacent machine-tool set, Haas is the only builder with a public price list (VF-2 $70,995, verified 31 August 2026); no OEM in the electrical set publishes switchgear, transformer or UPS list prices.
- Reports backlog in dollars. From the Q2 2026 filings listed above and in the Book-to-Bill League Table.
- Reports capacity in units. Yes: Siemens Energy’s Charlotte plant, 24 large power transformers a year rising to 57 (press release, February 2024). Partial: GE Vernova gas turbines in GW (Q2 2026 8-K). Most expansions are announced in dollars and jobs only (Eaton, Jonesville SC, $340M; Hitachi Energy, $1B).
- Reports delivery performance against quote. No OEM in the set publishes on-time delivery. Every cell reads no; this is the column version 1 fills from the panel.
What is free and what is paid
Everything on this model is free: the headline, the five-column table, the source beside every cell and the OEM replies. It is the rating that costs nothing and that the rated parties will check.
Articles built on it
The full scorecard piece is in preparation. The backlog column is already published through Book-to-Bill League Table, Q2 2026 and Vertiv Stopped Reporting Its Backlog. The lead-time column through Introducing the Open Factory Lead-Time Monitor.
Version history
- 0.1 (September 2026). Eighteen OEMs, five observable cells, Q2 2026 filings and OEM sites as of 9 September 2026. Right-of-reply letters go out with the first full scorecard piece.
What version 1 adds
A sixth column, delivered versus quoted lead time by OEM, from the distributor and EPC panel behind the Lead-Time Monitor version 1. It prints only from cells that meet the methodology size rules, and every OEM sees its number before it runs.
Known gaps
List-price checks cover public web pages only; dealer price books behind logins are not counted either way. Hitachi’s backlog is a segment figure from a Japanese parent’s presentation and is scored yes. Generac’s dollar figure covers one product line and is scored partial.
Questions
Is this a quality or honesty rating?
No. It scores disclosure, not product and not intent. A vendor can score low on every cell and ship excellent gear on time. The name says what it measures.
What counts as publishing a lead time?
A dated schedule by product family that a buyer can open without an account. Schneider's monthly guide counts. Rockwell's page that says some lines are constrained and directs buyers to distributors does not.
Do OEMs see the scorecard before it runs?
Yes. Every scored company receives its row and the supporting documents ten business days before publication and may reply in 200 words, printed verbatim.
Articles built on this model
Dry Cooler or Cooling Tower: What the Water Bill Says in 15 Markets
A thousand gallons of water and sewer costs $24.80 in Douglas County, Georgia and $8.68 in Baton Rouge as of October 2026, and since a 50 MW open cooling tower needs about 300 million gallons a year, Open Factory's MEP Cost Table puts the gap at $3.6 million a year.
Fiber Laser Cutters: What a $500,000 Price Gap Buys
A Chinese 6 to 12 kW fiber laser sells for $45,000 to $85,000 FOB in December 2025 and lands at about $128,000 after the 41% duty stack, while federal buyers paid $645,000 to $1.75 million in 2025, a $504,000 gap to the cheapest award Open Factory's Equipment Price Benchmark itemizes.
Tariffs, September 2026: The Actual Schedule for Machinery and Electrical Gear
As of September 2026 a 2,500 kVA pad-mount transformer pays 25% US duty from every origin and 50% from China, while a low-voltage panel with its PLC pays 0% from Mexico, 10% from Germany, 12.5% from Japan and 40.2% from China, per Open Factory's Tariff Exposure Calculator.
SendCutSend: How a Bootstrapped Reno Shop Became a $1 Billion Parts Factory
SendCutSend cuts an aluminum bracket in 2 to 4 production days with no minimum quantity, has shipped more than 30 million parts to 300,000 customers from three US plants, and raised $110 million at a $1.01 billion valuation in May 2026. Open Factory's Lead-Time Monitor tracks the turnaround.
Modular Is Not Cheaper: A 50 MW Prefab Electrical Room, Line by Line
A prefabricated electrical room for a 50 MW datacenter is not cheaper: Open Factory's Datacenter MEP Cost Table lands the skid route at $3.51M per MW against $3.47M stick-built, 1% more, but 27 weeks faster at 95 weeks from power-block PO to energization against 122, as of August 2026.
The Recommended Spares List Is Where the Margin Hides
On public awards Open Factory can read, the spares line is 0.8% of a transformer award, 2% of a genset and 20% of a breaker buy, and the City of Ocala paid $40,197.50 per ABB R-Mag breaker in November 2023 and $44,499.75 in November 2025 with no second quote.
800 VDC Will Strand Your White-Space Frame Agreement
NVIDIA set a ship date for 800 VDC on August 11, 2026, with the MGX power rack due in the second half of 2026. Open Factory finds a five-year 415 V UPS and AC busway frame agreement puts 40 to 60% of its dollars into superseded SKUs.
How to Write an RFQ for Capital Equipment in 2026
An equipment RFQ in 2026 has to settle escalators, LDs, milestones and tariff refunds: the City of Ocala agreed $8,070,340 for two 105 MVA autotransformers in August 2023 and approved $9,170,340 for the same units on April 28, 2026, a $1.1 million PPI escalator, per Open Factory's Bid-Tab Price Book.
CloudNC and Limitless Labs: AI Is Coming for the CNC Programming Bottleneck
CloudNC and Limitless Labs raised $40 million between them from 16 June to 8 September 2026 to automate CNC programming for the 4,790 CNC tool programmers in America's 16,619 machine shops, and Open Factory's seat math shows a 50% CAM cut returns about $22,139 a year per programmer.
The R-454B Summer: What the Refrigerant Switch Did to Chiller Prices
A 20 lb cylinder of R-454B cost $345 in 2021 and $700 to $2,000 in July and August 2025, the switch raised Carrier chiller list prices 10% in March 2024 and March 2025, and Open Factory finds the 563 lb charge in a 500-ton chiller is 1.2% of the machine.
OFCI vs Design-Build: How Hyperscalers Buy Chillers and Colo Developers Do Not
Owner-furnished, contractor-installed chillers and CDUs for a 20 MW liquid-cooled hall cost $27.9 million against $32.8 million through the mechanical subcontract, a saving of $4.9 million or 14.9%, because OFCI strips a 15% subcontractor markup and 10% GC fee, per Open Factory's Datacenter MEP Cost Table as of June 2026.
Grainger's 2017 Confession: The Year a Distributor Admitted Its List Prices Were Fiction
On April 18, 2017, W.W. Grainger told investors its first quarter fell short because customers responded to across-the-board list price cuts and new web prices on about 450,000 SKUs, and US gross margin fell 1.7 points in one quarter, a reset Open Factory's Bid-Tab Price Book traces through 2026.
1,250 Hours: Reading BMW's Humanoid Pilot as a Buyer
BMW's Figure 02 humanoid pilot delivered about 1,250 operating hours in ten months at Spartanburg in 2025, or 0.6 of one worker's year, moving more than 90,000 sheet-metal parts, and it is the only pilot with a disclosed runtime among the nine Open Factory's OEM Disclosure Scorecard scores.
The $306k Machine: A Record Half-Year With Fewer Units
US manufacturers ordered a record $3.44 billion of metalworking machinery in the first half of 2026 on 11,243 machines, 2.6% fewer than in the second half of 2025, so the average order rose to about $306,000 from $277,000, as tracked in Open Factory's Bid-Tab Price Book.
From 36 Weeks to Stock: The ControlLogix Lead-Time Cycle
Rockwell's own bulletin listed a ControlLogix 5580 controller at 35 calendar days on September 22, 2021 and 208 days on October 26, 2022, and Open Factory's Lead-Time Monitor, which holds eleven editions of that bulletin, now reads the PLC line at stock.
Grainger vs McMaster vs Amazon Business: A 50-SKU Price Basket
Open Factory priced the same 50 MRO items at six distributors on 10 September 2026: Fastenal's median web price was 126% above the cheapest storefront, McMaster-Carr's was 37% above, and Amazon Business was the floor, cheapest on 34 of 48 SKUs with a comparison.
A Robot Costs $61k. The Cell Costs $150k
North American buyers paid $61,198 per robot arm in 2025, but a working cell costs 1.9 to 2.4 times that, $113,336 to $144,432 for three common cobot cells priced line by line in Open Factory's Bid-Tab Price Book as of September 2026.
The $60 Million Deposit: How Equipment Slots Became Datacenter Currency
One slot for a 384 MW GE Vernova 7HA.02 turbine takes a $60 million reservation payment, 20% of a $300 million machine. GE Vernova ended June 2026 with 116 GW under contract, 63 GW as slot reservations, and $25.8 billion paid in advance, which Open Factory's MEP Cost Table carries.
Who Gets the IEEPA Refund
The IEEPA refund goes to the importer of record, not the buyer who paid a surcharge, and CBP puts the pool at about $166 billion across 53 million entries and 330,000 importers as of March 2026. Open Factory's Tariff Exposure Calculator flags the refundable lines on every 2025 entry.
Compressed Air Is 10% of Your Factory's Power Bill
Compressed air takes about 10% of a typical plant's electricity by DOE's count, and a 200 hp rotary screw compressor running 6,000 hours a year at the 2025 US industrial rate of 8.62 cents per kWh costs about $70,000 a year. Open Factory finds a leak program worth $83,000.
Five Majors Bought Their Way Into Liquid Cooling. Here Is the Price List
Five majors paid $16.3 billion of disclosed prices for liquid cooling companies in seventeen months, with Ecolab buying CoolIT for $4.75 billion at 29 times EBITDA on March 20, 2026 and Eaton closing Boyd Thermal at $9.5 billion and 22.5 times, per Open Factory's deal table.
Nox Metals: The Detroit Startup Cutting Aluminum Plate in 36 Hours
Nox Metals quotes saw-cut aluminum plate instantly and delivers in an average of 36 hours, against the 3 to 5 days a typical service center takes to quote, after an $11.5 million seed on 14 June 2026, and Open Factory's Lead-Time Monitor lists cut plate as its first raw material.
Chillers Are the 60-Week Problem
A water-cooled chiller over 1,000 tons quotes at 50 to 70 weeks in the United States as of May 22, 2026, an air-cooled machine over 500 tons at 40 to 60 weeks, and Census M3 puts HVAC unfilled orders at $18.6 billion in July 2026, per Open Factory's Lead-Time Monitor.
What a Haas VF-2 Really Costs in 2026
A new Haas VF-2 lists at $70,995, which is 35% of the roughly $172,523 net ten-year bill for a one-shift job shop once maintenance, one spindle, power, coolant and cutting tools are added, per Open Factory's Bid-Tab Price Book worked example as of September 2026.
The Used and Refurbished Market Nobody Indexes
Fifteen vendors bid $41,200 to $101,253 on one 2,500 kVA pad-mount transformer for Fayetteville's public utility in September 2025, a 2.5x spread at 10 to 35 week lead times, and a dealer shipping from stock lists it at $104,000, 1.77x the median bid, per Open Factory's Bid-Tab Price Book.
1872, Foundational Industries and Hadrian: Three Blueprints for the Autonomous American Factory
Between July 2025 and August 2026, 1872, Foundational Industries and Hadrian raised $1.41 billion to build autonomous American factories: $15 million, $25 million and $1.37 billion respectively, with Hadrian's four plants totalling just under 3 million square feet. Open Factory's Lead-Time Monitor will track each one's delivered lead time.
Japan Is Eating the US Capex Boom
Japanese machine tool builders booked JPY 40.65 billion of North American orders in June 2026, up 44% from June 2025, and in the first half of 2026 US buyers sent them $1.29 billion of the $3.44 billion placed for metalworking machinery, 37 cents of every dollar, by Open Factory's arithmetic.
When a Megapack Beats a Static UPS
A 24 MW, 48 MWh block of twelve Tesla Megapack 2 XL units costs about $14.4 million installed at January 2026 prices, $10.1 million after the 30% storage credit, against about $17.5 million for the N+1 static UPS in a 20 MW hall, per Open Factory's Datacenter MEP Cost Table.
The OEM Disclosure Scorecard: Who Tells Buyers Anything
Open Factory's OEM Disclosure Scorecard version 0.1 finds that the eighteen largest electrical, power and cooling OEMs publish only 12 of 90 cells a buyer needs, with 16 Partials and 62 Noes: GE Vernova alone scores 2 of 5, ten score 1 and seven score 0, as of September 2026.
Rockwell's 250 Basis Points: How Tariffs Show Up in Your PLC Quote
Tariffs are 100 basis points of a Rockwell Automation bill in fiscal 2026, inside the 250 basis points of total price the company guided on its August 4, 2026 call, and Open Factory's Bid-Tab Price Book tracks the pass-through against the 150 basis points of underlying price.
Why Your Switchgear Costs 50% More Than in 2021
The BLS producer price index for switchgear stood at 394.8 in July 2026, 78% above January 2021, and medium-voltage switchgear is up 50% since 2021 per Wood Mackenzie. Open Factory's decomposition finds inputs explain 36 of the 78 points and margin the other 43.
The 30% Fuel-Cell ITC Is the Last Federal Subsidy for On-Site Power
Since July 4, 2025, the 30% federal investment credit survives only for fuel cells among gas-fired on-site power, with wind and solar needing construction by July 4, 2026 and gas CHP getting nothing, and Open Factory's math turns a 2.5-year payback at $210/MWh in California into 1.7 years.
Vertiv Stopped Reporting Its Backlog. Here Is Our Estimate
Open Factory estimates Vertiv's unpublished order backlog at $16 to $20 billion at June 30, 2026, central case about $17.4 billion, up from the last reported $15.0 billion at December 31, 2025, with current deferred revenue doubling from $1.81 billion to $3.63 billion in six months.
Transformer Lead Times Hit 143 Weeks: Who Gets Delivered First
A generator step-up transformer ordered in the United States was quoted at 143 weeks in the second quarter of 2025, a substation power transformer at 128 weeks and medium-voltage switchgear at 44, per Wood Mackenzie, against about 50 weeks in 2021, and Open Factory's Lead-Time Monitor lists both readings.
One Steel Mill Gates Every US Transformer
Every pound of domestic grain-oriented electrical steel in a US transformer core is melted at Cleveland-Cliffs Butler Works, a plant with a 920 mm maximum coil width, and the transformer PPI is up 91% since December 2019 at 381.8 in July 2026, per Open Factory's Lead-Time Monitor.
MES Is a Consulting Product
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing has paid $110.1 million for MES support services since May 2021 against $4.64 million of Oracle licences in FY2025, about five dollars of consulting per dollar of software, the pattern Open Factory found across 44 public MES and SCADA awards as of October 2025.
Tariff Bill of Materials: What Sections 232 and 301 Add to a UPS, a Lineup, a Genset and a Megapack
A 1 MW UPS assembled in the United States carries about 17 points of duty and the same UPS imported from China carries 55, under the tariff stack in force on October 10, 2025. The 50% copper tariff is 3.8 of those 17 points, per Open Factory's Tariff Exposure Calculator.
The Copper and Wire Price Sheet, Weekly
Open Factory's Copper and Wire Price Sheet, refreshed every Monday, prices a foot of 500 kcmil copper at $9.48 of metal at the IMF's $6.14 a pound for July 2026, or $9.70 at that month's $6.28 COMEX open, with a price per foot for 13 conductor sizes.
The $2,850 Report That Says Nothing
IBISWorld's $2,850 ProcurementIQ switchgear report prices the whole category at one $37,300 benchmark, while the 118 public awards in Open Factory's Public Bid-Tab Price Book run from $12,492 for a pad-mount switch in 2019 to $3,827,000 for a 34.5 kV lineup in September 2024.
Building the Missing Index: Realized Auction Prices for Used CNC Machines
Used CNC machines lose about half their hammer value every 3.9 years, based on 144 realized auction lots from June 2023 to September 2026 in Open Factory's Bid-Tab Price Book, and a five-year-old Haas VF-2SS hammered at $36,600 in November 2025, 43.6% of its $83,995 list price.
Cummins and Caterpillar Are Sold Out Through 2028
Cummins is taking generator orders well into 2028 and Caterpillar closed June 2026 with $72.1 billion of firm backlog, and Open Factory's Lead-Time Monitor shows published lead times of 50 to 66 weeks for a 1,500 to 2,000 kW diesel genset and 90 to 110 weeks above 3,500 kW.
The 171-Day Capex Lead Time: ISM's Most Ignored Table
The average US manufacturing buyer commits to capital equipment 171 days ahead of need in the August 2026 ISM report, with 27% committing more than a year out, against 147 days in December 2019. Open Factory's Lead-Time Monitor rebuilds the series back to 2007.
Book-to-Bill League Table, Q2 2026: Every Electrical OEM
Powell Industries posted a book-to-bill of 3.0 in the quarter to June 30 2026, booking $934 million of switchgear orders against $312 million shipped, and all eight electrical OEMs that print a ratio sit above 1.0, down to Eaton at 1.2, in Open Factory's Book-to-Bill League Table.
Introducing the Open Factory Lead-Time Monitor
Schneider Electric quotes low-voltage switchgear at 50 weeks from release to manufacturing in its September 2026 Lead Times Guide, and Open Factory's Lead-Time Monitor, launched as version 0.1, puts all eleven equipment classes in one table, of which only four have an OEM-published lead time.