Q1 2023 Tennant Co Earnings Call

Participants

David W. Huml; President, CEO & Director; Tennant Company

Fay West; Senior VP, CFO & Principal Accounting Officer; Tennant Company

Lorenzo Bassi; VP of Finance; Tennant Company

Brett Kearney

Christopher Paul Moore; Senior Research Analyst; CJS Securities, Inc.

Stephen Michael Ferazani; Research Analyst; Sidoti & Company, LLC

Timothy M. Moore; Research Analyst; EF Hutton, Research Division

Presentation

Operator

Good morning. My name is David, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to Tennant Company's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being recorded. (Operator Instructions) Thank you for participating in Tennant Company's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Beginning today's meeting is Mr. Lorenzo Bassi, Vice President, Finance for Tennant Company. Mr. Bassi, you may begin your conference.

Lorenzo Bassi

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Tennant Company's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. I'm Lorenzo Bassi, Vice President, Finance. Joining me on the call today are Dave Huml, Tennant's President and CEO; and Fay West, Senior Vice President and CFO. Today, we will provide you an update on our 2023 first quarter performance. Dave will provide you an update on our operations and enterprise strategy, and Fay will cover our financials. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call to questions. Please note, a slide presentation accompanies this conference call and is available on our Investor Relations website at investors.tennantco.com.

Before we begin, please be advised that our remarks this morning and our answers to questions may contain forward-looking statements regarding the company's expectations of future performance. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and our actual results may differ materially from those contained in the statements. These risks and uncertainties are described in today's news release and the documents we filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We encourage you to review those documents, particularly our safe harbor statement, for a description of the risks and uncertainties that may affect our results. Additionally, on this conference call, we will discuss non-GAAP measures that include or exclude certain items. Our 2023 first quarter earnings release includes the comparable GAAP measures and a reconciliation of those non-GAAP measures to our GAAP results. Our earnings release was issued this morning via Business Wire and is also posted on our Investor Relations website at investors.tennantco.com. I'll now turn the call over to Dave.

David W. Huml

Thanks, Lorenzo, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining the call today. Tennant had a very strong first quarter with an all-time record for sales and balanced growth across all geographic regions and product categories, along with service and parts and consumables. Overall, we achieved organic year-over-year growth of 21%. Our sales growth was driven by both pricing and volume. 11% of our sales growth was driven by backlog reduction and the remainder was attributed to growth in our base business. We saw good price realization in Q1, while volume benefited from improved parts availability, which boosted our manufacturing output. The actions we took in 2022 with respect to our supply chain are reading through. We remain cautiously optimistic that supply will continue to stabilize, which would enable increased and more predictable output. Price realization and moderating inflation led to an expansion of our gross margin, which is now back to pre-pandemic levels and demonstrates Tennant's ability to perform when we're able to secure the parts we need to operate productively and efficiently. Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 was nearly $48 million or 15.7% of revenue. Our top line and gross margin expansion allowed us to create strong operating leverage as we continue to be disciplined in managing our costs, and we converted 100% of our Q1 net income to free cash flow.

Demand for Tennant products continued to be robust in Q1 as total incoming Q1 order demand exceeded our initial expectations and was in line with our full year guidance. Our open order position of $298 million is still significantly above historic levels and backlog is especially strong in industrial, North America. Even so, Q1 was the first quarter of meaningful backlog reduction since Q2 of 2021, and we believe represents an important turning point in our efforts to mitigate persistent supply chain challenges and meet strong customer demand. As Fay will discuss, we are reaffirming our full year guidance. Although macroeconomic uncertainty remains, Q1 demonstrated that we are ready and able to capitalize on any improvements in the supply chain environment. As such, we are monitoring order patterns closely and reacting accordingly.

At the same time, our R&D and product management teams continue to work to enhance our current product portfolio. For example, in our small spaces category, our new i-mop Lite delivers the cleaning performance of a mechanized scrubber with the mobility of a flat mop. This makes it ideal for all kinds of small, cluttered or difficult to navigate spaces like public restrooms, stadium bleachers and staff breakrooms. The i-mop XL Plus includes more advanced features and is designed for slightly larger spaces like dining areas, meeting rooms, locker rooms, lobbies and other common areas. At the top of the range, the i-mop XXL Plus matches the capabilities of a full-size walk-behind scrubber with enhanced maneuverability to clean around obstacles and irregular layouts. We continue to leverage the product platforms of our Gaomei and IPC brands, and we introduced 2 new additions to our Ride-On scrubber portfolio: the T681 and the T981. These models have the right combination of size, features and maneuverability for budget-minded customers who want a simple but effective machine, but do not want to sacrifice quality or dependability.

In addition to executing on our enterprise strategy initiatives, we formalized our commitment to our renewed and refreshed sustainability strategy. Specifically, we have set a goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across Scopes 1, 2 and 3 by the year 2040 and have submitted a letter of commitment to the Science Based Targets Initiative or SBTi, for validation. To reach net-zero, we plan to make deep emissions cuts across our operations and value chain. We will partner with customers to increase the energy efficiency of our portfolio and we'll seek to source 100% of our electricity from renewable sources globally by 2030. We also are striving to electrify 100% of both our product offerings and our global vehicle fleet by 2040. Furthermore, we will collaborate with technology partners to drive innovation and development to lead the industry toward a cleaner future. Tennant is an industry leader with a reputation for innovation, and I'm confident that we can affect change on a global scale. By embedding sustainable thinking into how we work, we will continue to deliver solutions that can help our customers solve their biggest cleaning challenges, while addressing their own sustainability targets. Working within our own business and with our stakeholders, we will help people thrive and contribute to a healthier planet.

With that, I will turn the call over to Fay for a discussion of our financials.

Fay West

Thank you, Dave, and hello, everyone. As Dave noted, we reported a very strong first quarter. Net income of $24.3 million was up $14 million from the prior year period. Improved operating performance was driven by higher price realization and volume increases in all geographies, particularly the Americas and was partly offset by higher variable operating costs, interest costs and income taxes. Net interest expense increased to $3.7 million in Q1, up from $300,000 in the prior year period. The increase was due to higher debt level, coupled with rising interest rates on our variable interest rates debt. Adjusted income tax expense of $7.7 million increased $3.3 million over the prior year period, largely driven by an improvement to operating performance. The first quarter adjusted effective tax rate of 24.5% is in line with full year expectations. First quarter adjusted earnings per diluted share, which excludes amortization and restructuring charges, nearly doubled to $1.45 per share from $0.73 per share in the prior year period. For the first quarter of 2023, Tennant reported net sales of $305.8 million compared to $258.1 million in Q1 last year. This represented organic growth of 21%, with roughly half the growth attributed to pricing and the other half driven by volume. Our backlog went from $326 million at the end of 2022 to $298 million at the end of the first quarter as better parts availability and the increased predictability of our production output allowed us to better fulfill customer orders. Foreign currency translation unfavorably impacted sales by 2.5%.

Tennant groups its sales into 3 geographies: the Americas, which includes all of North America and Latin America; EMEA, which covers Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Asia-Pacific, which includes Australia, China, Japan and other Asian markets. In Q1, all 3 geographic regions achieved year-over-year sales growth. Sales in the Americas grew 27.5% to $204.4 million or 27.9% on an organic basis, while FX had a net unfavorable impact of approximately 0.4%. This significant year-over-year growth in our largest region was driven equally by price realization and volume increases across all product categories. Our North American production plants were able to obtain constrained parts and increase production to meet order demand and address elevated backlog levels. Sales in EMEA increased 4.3% over the prior year to $82.1 million or 10.6% on an organic basis. Broad-based growth across all product categories, led by floor care equipment and across all direct geographies, especially in the U.K. and Iberia drove this year-over-year increase. Sales in the Asia-Pacific region increased 1.4% over the prior year to $19.4 million or 7% on an organic basis. This was driven by growth across all product categories, particularly equipment and across our direct geographies, especially Australia, China and India. China's improved performance was directly impacted by the lifting of COVID-related restrictions early in the first quarter.

Turning to adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 was $47.9 million, an increase of $20 million or 72% versus the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA was 15.7% of sales, an increase of 490 basis points versus the prior year. Our sales growth driven by both volume and price was the most significant driver of EBITDA growth. EBITDA margin was also driven by an expansion of gross margin and by operating leverage created by top line growth. Gross profit margin improved 270 basis points to 41% in the first quarter compared to Q1 of last year. Continuing what has been a positive trend, gross profit margin improved 140 basis points sequentially from the fourth quarter of 2022. The increases were driven by pricing realization, which offset the impact of multiyear inflation on materials and labor. Selling and administrative expense was $81.7 million for the first quarter of 2023, an increase of $5.1 million compared to a year ago. The increase was driven primarily by higher variable costs associated with increased operating performance, such as warranty costs and other employee costs. As a percentage of net sales, S&A expense for the first quarter decreased 300 basis points to 26.7% from 29.7% in Q1 of last year, driven by both leverage attributable to our top line and gross margin growth as well as our cost containment initiatives.

We are pleased with our first quarter performance, but at the same time, we remain cautious and continue to monitor order patterns and supplier performance closely to anticipate any moderating signals that would require swift actions. As the year progresses, we will evaluate further investments to support our business. Overall, we believe our Q1 results have established a strong foundation for achieving our 2023 full year guidance.

Turning now to capital deployment. In Q1, net cash provided by operating activities was approximately $31.1 million compared to $10.1 million in the year ago period. The increase was the result of improved operating performance, coupled with moderating investments in working capital. Capital expenditures of approximately $7 million were in line with our expectations and are on pace to meet our full year guidance. In Q1, we continued to return capital to our shareholders with dividend payments of $4.9 million and the repurchase of approximately 74,000 shares of our common stock for $5 million. These actions are aligned with our capital allocation priorities. Tennant's liquidity remains strong with a balance of $91.4 million of cash and cash equivalents at the end of the first quarter and approximately $242.3 million of unused borrowing capacity on the company's revolving credit facility. At the midpoint of our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance range, our net leverage was 1.38x, lower than our stated goal of 1.5 to 2.5x.

Turning to guidance. We reaffirm our guidance as detailed on the slide, including net sales of $1.115 billion to $1.155 billion, reflecting organic sales growth of 3% to 7% and adjusted EBITDA of $140 million to $160 million. Overall, we see continued strength in the demand for Tennant products, and we remain cautiously optimistic about the improved stability of our supply chain despite the uncertainty of global economic conditions. Moreover, our strong first quarter gives us confidence regarding our full year 2023 guidance, which is in line with our long-range financial commitment.

With that, I will turn the call back to Dave.

David W. Huml

Thank you, Fay. In summary, I am very proud of the global team and our ability to take advantage of the opportunities presented to us. This was a great start to the year and sets us up to deliver on our full year guidance. With that, we will open the call to questions.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) We'll take our first question from Chris Moore with CJS Securities.

Christopher Paul Moore

Great quarter. So backlog of $298 million -- how would you characterize the pricing of your backlog? The steel prices have gone up sharply year-to-date. Just curious how you look at the current pricing.

David W. Huml

Yes, great question, Chris, and it's one that we've had to, out of necessity, get much more granular in trying to analyze how price will flow through our backlog. In aggregate, you can think about a quarter or a quarter and a half delay between a price increase and realizing it out into our P&L. Obviously, as we stated in the script, not all backlog is equal, where our backlog is more heavily weighted in North America and more heavily weighted around our industrial products globally. So you can think about it in aggregate. The other dynamic that makes it difficult to predict how price will flow through backlog is that we're not operating on a pure FIFO basis. We are allocating based on customer demand, customer needs and trying to satisfy as many customers as possible as we work to reduce the backlog. I think the positive point is that we have very strong price realization. So as the orders flow through backlog at different rates, depending on the product category or the region, our realization is holding up very well, and you see that in the numbers that we just posted for Q1. If you break down the 21% organic growth, about 11% of that growth came from backlog reduction, 10% from what I would call base business growth and equally split between price and volume. So thinking about price realization has an impact on our business. We're getting strong price realization. It's rolling through our backlog on an uneven basis, but we're certainly benefiting. As we look out in the future, to the extent we can reduce backlog, we expect to continue to benefit from the prices that we published within the marketplace.

Christopher Paul Moore

Got it, very helpful. Q4 orders resume growth after a slower Q3, which followed, I think, 7 quarters of growth. You indicated that Q1 orders exceeded your expectations. Did they grow sequentially or year-over-year?

David W. Huml

Yes, orders were up versus our plan, but we had calendarized the year to ramp. I think we talked about this on the last call. We calendarized the year to ramp from Q1 to Q4. So while we beat our Q1 plan, our orders were actually just in line. If you just straight line what we need for orders to deliver full year guidance, they were in line with what we need on a full year basis. So we are off a bit on the calendarization. They were up and in line with guidance and on the trend that we established coming out of Q4.

Christopher Paul Moore

Got it. So the adjusted EBITDA range is still $140 million to $160 million. You have quarter plus of data, how would you compare your kind of Q1 expectations a few months ago versus what you actually put up for the [$47.9 million]?

David W. Huml

Yes, as I said, we calendarized our year to start out quite modestly. You'll recall that we began some recovery from a parts shortage perspective in Q4 -- a bit above our expectations. That trend from a parts shortage availability -- the availability of the parts -- continued into Q1. So Q1, I would say, exceeded our planned expectations, but Q1 is really in line with the kind of quarters we need to deliver to achieve our full year guidance. So we're pleased with the quarter. When you look at what's underneath the performance, the fact that we had strong orders, the fact that we had growth in our base business -- this was our first quarter of meaningful backlog reduction, taking backlog down by $28 million, which I think is an important proof point to show that when we get parts, we can not only serve the base business growth, but also reduce backlog and get those customers a product that they've been waiting for. It's really a direct result of all the actions and investments the team has taken over the last -- throughout 2022, and we've detailed those in a lot of detail as we move through the prior releases.

I think the other important point about Q1, Chris, is that it demonstrates when we're able to get parts that we can monetize the backlog and deliver. So one of the questions we've been posed with in the past is given all the focus on parts shortages, if you start to get parts, do you have the labor and the production capacity to react quickly and turn it into revenue and work the backlog down. I think Q1 demonstrates that we are ready and can flex quickly.

Operator

Next, we'll go to Steve Ferazani with Sidoti.

Stephen Michael Ferazani

I'm going to have to sort of follow up the previous questions in terms of guidance. Obviously, you significantly exceeded what we were thinking. You said you did exceed internal expectations. You said order rate was pretty much in line with what you were thinking. What is holding you back from raising guidance or at least narrowing it to the upper end?

David W. Huml

Yes, great question, Steve. Just to clarify, order rates were above what we had planned for, but in line with what we need to deliver full year guidance. So listen, having such a strong first quarter, it's logical to ask yourself how to approach guidance and having overperformed on virtually every metric across the P&L. It's a mathematically logical question. Actually, it's one we've thoughtfully considered in preparation for release. So let me give you a few of the points that we thought about as we held and reaffirmed our current guidance.

Listen, the Q1 results give us an increased confidence in full year guidance. So it's a positive, and we're feeling good about the guidance range that's out there. When you look at Q1, we're really only through 1 quarter of the year. So we still have 3 quarters to deliver. If there's anything I've learned and we've learned from the last 3 years is that the environment can change very rapidly within a year. So continuing to monitor signals from the marketplace, both demand signals and sort of outlook from key customers is a really important component that we take into consideration. People are still reasonably optimistic for the year, but there's certainly reasons for uncertainty when you think about the macro environment we're operating in.

The other factor we thought about was the parts availability that we've struggled against for really, you could say, the last 7 or 8 quarters. We began a more positive trend from a parts availability perspective, really in the last 100 days. It started in earnest kind of end of Q4, and we saw some improvement in parts availability that fueled our Q1 performance and results. But we are still managing parts shortages. We cannot get all the parts that we want and the quantity we want and not all suppliers are delivering predictably. So while we're encouraged by a 100-day pattern, we're not confident enough to extrapolate that until a full year's worth experience. We're still working to try to improve the parts availability so that we can ramp production.

The next point I would make is relative to orders and backlog. I mentioned this in the script, our backlog is heavily weighted in North America, and our backlog is heavily weighted on industrial products. So we have pretty good coverage from the backlog in terms of delivering on guidance in those categories and in those -- in that geography. In the rest of the product categories and the rest of the regions of the world, incoming order demand matters because if we don't get the incoming order, we won't have the revenue to ship and deliver on the full year guidance. So we're monitoring order patterns very closely. While orders were strong in first quarter, there is seasonality in our business. I would point to North America, our largest business unit, and I think we've talked about this in the past, there's Q2 seasonality, particularly driven by the education vertical, where schools as they close for the school year, they tend to buy their equipment fleet, renew their equipment fleets and they do most of their restorative floor cleaning over the summer while students aren't there to prepare for the fall. We need to see that Q2 seasonality materialize to bolster our commercial order rate so that we can fill that part of the funnel and deliver on full year guidance.

Lastly, when we thought about the uncertainty that was in place when we laid the plan for the year, kind of end of 2022, when we look across the macro environment, I wouldn't say it's gotten any worse, but it certainly hasn't gotten materially better. Interest rates are at an all-time high. People are uncertain about potential for looming recession, the Ukraine war continues on. So the macro environment, we don't see more certainty. Having said that, I wouldn't want anyone to infer that our not raising guidance was somehow linked to something we saw on the horizon. We don't see anything negative looming. We're just exercising, I would say, a degree of prudent caution as we move into the year to make sure that we can continue to build on our predictability by delivering on the guidance that we communicate.

Stephen Michael Ferazani

That's extremely helpful, very detailed. I appreciate the thoughts on that. When I think about another unpredictable area, China, we've started to see it reopen, but I'm guessing what you saw in Q1 could be just the start, right? How are you thinking about a fully open China, what that could do in 2023 if indeed, that plays out?

David W. Huml

Yes, so we had baked into our guidance an improving China. China did have a solid first quarter and some of the promise and hope of a reopened China that we heard. I think the last time we talked, the government had taken the action, but our customers and our channel partners were still a little cautious whether it's going to hold, and it would remain in place. We've since seen real demand generated. Our distributors have begun to stock up in response to that demand, and it's getting back to more normal. We posted double-digit revenue increase in China in Q1. So we're optimistic for China and hopeful that the government will continue the status quo so that we can continue to capitalize on the lost time from the -- that we lost during the shutdowns. We're bullish on China because it represents such a fantastic opportunity for us, not only from -- if you just look at the data around the market potential, China could be the single largest cleaning market on the planet in our lifetime. So we want to make sure that we have a very firm footprint and that we're on solid ground with our product portfolio and our channel reach and our brands and prepared to capitalize on the cleaning mechanization as it happens, and drive the mechanization. So still really bullish on China. Early returns are good, and we're optimistic for the near term.

Stephen Michael Ferazani

That's great. If I can get one more in, just in terms of if you can provide any kind of color on -- you've obviously rolled out a number of new products over the last 6 months, probably more so than I can remember. In terms of how that's impacting results and any kind of update on the robots.

David W. Huml

Yes, absolutely. Tennant has a rich legacy of being the innovation leader in our marketplace, and that's been punctuated in recent times. We've been aggressively expanding our -- I'll start with our robotics portfolio. Our T7 and T380AMRs were largely focused on retail and sort of lighter commercial applications. Our T16AMR is focused on industrial applications. Actually, as we look across the portfolio, we love our position. We're excited about retail and the more commercial-type applications. But industrial plays to our strengths, and while it may not be the large fleet orders that you can get in retail or in a school system, industrial tends to be smaller unit volume orders. We have a unique strength in our industrial verticals with our Factory Direct Service organization and our Factory Direct Sales organization, and we're really comfortable operating in that environment. We think the adoption could actually be accelerated because it doesn't have the public walking through those environments. Those industrial customers are more adept at investing in automation to drive their business, and it's inside their 4 walls. So they can more efficiently measure the return on the investment that they're able to achieve. So robotics did contribute to our results, continues to contribute -- very bullish on robotics (inaudible) that solves one of our customers' biggest problems, which is their labor challenges. They can't find labor, and when they do, it's costing them more to employ labor for cleaning.

The other new products you referenced, yes, we do have a full suite of products. When you think about -- we have some line extension products that we've launched. These were products platforms that we got through acquisition of the IPC business in 2017, through the Gaomei business acquisition. These are products that are designed to competitively compete -- to be competitive at different price points and different value props. We accelerated the launch of those products as we were parts challenged on some of the legacy Tennant product lines. We accelerated the launch of those other offerings that allowed us to compete at different price points. It's been very well received by the marketplace, and it's great for our business. So we'll continue to deploy that strategy. It just -- it allows us to serve more customers, be more competitive in more segments of the market and serve them profitably.

The last one is our small space offering. We've launched the i-mop products, we have the i-mop XL, i-mop XXL. These are fantastic products that allow our customers to clean smaller spaces. The great part about this product is we can sell it very efficiently because there are small spaces in every one of the verticals we currently serve. So while we're in and entrenched with larger equipment for their larger floor spaces within the building, we can now sell them a product for their smaller spaces, and we outline some of those on the script. So when you look across our recently launched products, we have new products for every member of our sales organization to go out and sell, and something new to talk about to every existing customer and new customers in the vertical markets that we focus on. So we're really well positioned from a new product perspective to have exciting things to talk about to any customers. These are great door openers, we can get meetings with customers and demonstrate product. Once we're in demonstrating a new product, we can then sell the full suite of Tennant solutions to those customers.

Operator

Next, we'll go to Tim Moore with EF Hutton.

Timothy M. Moore

Congratulations on the strong sales growth beat and the amazing operating leverage, including your SG&A expense. Dave, thanks for clarifying your pretty conservative guidance and the factors that could alter the top end of your EBITDA and organic sales growth. I just want to start out with a 2-part question. You explained that a lot of the volumes seem to be -- or at least half the volumes seem to be conversion of the backlog. Was there any pull-in from the June quarter that you can tell of? Any orders that maybe ship late March from the Americas that might have boosted a little bit more of the March quarter, taking a little bit out of the June quarter?

David W. Huml

I'm sure that happens from time to time, but largely speaking, no. We've got our backlog. We're working down our backlog. Given the size of the backlog, that's our focus. Those are customers that value the Tennant value proposition, have placed their order, have been patiently waiting, and those are the customers we're focused on serving in addition to the base demand. Not aware of any pull-ins. I think what you mean is where we had a future order and we pulled it in, or do you mean when a -- where a customer pre-ordered because they wanted the product?

Timothy M. Moore

Or either. I was just wondering if you noticed any abnormal behavior of things that maybe shipped out quicker towards the end of March.

David W. Huml

No, not at all.

Timothy M. Moore

Good. Good enough, that's great. I just wanted to clarify the realization pricing boost cadence on a quarterly basis. If I remember correctly, and please feel free to correct me on this -- some of your pricing hikes started to get more realized in September or so. So I'm just trying to think about -- it would look like maybe the fourth quarter this year will probably have the lowest pricing tailwind if that was kind of already in place. Obviously, the fourth quarter faces a harder 10% year ago organic sales growth comparable. So I'm just trying to get a sense if pricing will probably start to lap in a meaningful way in the September quarter.

David W. Huml

Yes, you can think of -- listen, we price at different levels and at different times in different geographies. But with multiple price increases across 2022, I think your logic holds. We'll begin to lap price increases as the year goes on. So the year-over-year impact will start to be moderated. The only thing I would add, Tim, is obviously, we are closely monitoring inflation and market opportunity and we are pricing as we need to. So what could change is if we have the need to move on price yet again, and we're getting pretty good at it after the last couple of years, that would change the picture in terms of what we're able to lap and deliver for price realization.

I'll just add, we're getting really strong realization. A part of it is obviously due to operating in an inflationary environment, but it's not easy. We sell the world's largest companies in each of our verticals. They are very adept at pushing back and negotiating price. I'm just so -- I think it shows the power of our brand and our value proposition, but it also shows the power of our selling organization and the fact that they're able to go in and articulate and make a compelling case for why the price is still a good value to the customer and get it to stick.

Timothy M. Moore

That makes sense. I didn't want to belittle your pricing at all. I know it's been very strong and not just cost inflation, it's the enhancements and features that you're adding and the value prop for the customers. I just have the question now on your impressive gross margin back to pre-pandemic levels. Can you maybe give us a rough sense of the split, maybe how much of that expansion was driven by net pricing? Then maybe what came from what you were categorizing -- maybe better predictability, supply chain and components got a little bit better. Maybe there's less under absorption of your manufacturing facility. I'm just wondering if it's 2/3 pricing, and 1/3 -- just the manufacturing efficiency is getting better because of the supply chain.

Fay West

Yes, I think pricing drives a significant portion of the increase in gross margin year-over-year. But there's also operating efficiencies as we continue to move volume through the plant -- through the plants, I should say. So you're seeing that ratio almost the way that you laid it out. We've also been able to cover multiyear inflation, too, and that's also helping us in gross margin.

Timothy M. Moore

Great, and Fay, just on free cash flow. I know you haven't guided free cash flow and you had very strong $24 million in this quarter. Do you think that you can achieve close to $85 million this year? I mean do you have any sense of maybe what's going to happen to the working capital as you get through the summer or fall?

Fay West

Yes, and you're right, we don't guide for cash flow, but I think some of the components are there to consider. We had a very strong first quarter that was driven by operations that came through the operating cash flow line item. The other thing I would say is we anticipate increased contribution from working capital in the next 3 quarters of the year. So I think we should start to see that contribution coming through and helping with the free cash flow perspective.

Timothy M. Moore

That's terrific color, I appreciate that. My last question is, is there -- could you just maybe update us on the ERP project evaluation and maybe the time frame around -- for making that decision or not?

Fay West

Yes. So we're actually in the process of evaluating that right now. We anticipate that, that work will largely be done over the summer and into early fall, and we'll likely have some additional color to provide in our -- probably our Q3 release on the path forward.

Operator

Next, we'll go to Brett Kearney with Gabelli Funds.

Brett Kearney

Congrats on the strong execution, all the hard work the team has been doing over the past year plus. Curious, now that Tennant has very credible sustainability goals out there very much aligned with where some of your larger customers are going. When you think about your position you have in autonomous, curious anything that factors into conversations with some of your larger customers in terms of chemical, water efficiency that these machines unlock or the data that you guys are capturing coming off the machines that's very much needed for, say, the larger retailers to hit their own sustainability targets. Does that factor into the conversations at this point?

David W. Huml

It's a great question. It factors in to varying degrees, depending on the customer. But I think in general, we see it increasing over time. So it can take a number of different forms. But we think sustainability is going to be part of the conversation and the selling process for a long time to come as customers catch up. It's one of the areas I'm most excited about with our new sustainability strategy is that we can achieve our sustainability goals by helping our customers solve for their sustainability goals. Our products could play a pivotal role, not only in, for example, electrifying our product portfolio so that we can help customers eliminate internal combustion engines from their environment, which helps their emissions on site. It's that Scope 3 area of greenhouse gas emissions.

But also, like you said, we're uniquely positioned. We have -- our products use water. We have chemical-free cleaning technologies. We have data and robotics that can potentially contribute to our customers' sustainability goals. We also participate -- we recondition machines, which could contribute to product circularity. So I think there's multiple potential points of value -- that we can add real value to our customers that also has a sustainability benefit. But it's ultimately it's helping them reach their goals and solve their problems. It's not a sideline activity around sustainability. It's really integrated into who we are as a partner and what they're trying to do and where they're trying to go with their business.

Brett Kearney

Excellent. Then with the strong growth you guys have been seeing in your core industrial market in North America, we obviously hear about some of the plants and suppliers coming back to this region. Just curious whether you're seeing as good an opportunity with some of the customers you have a strong existing position with or new customer opportunities popping up from some of this potential, call it, reshoring activity.

David W. Huml

That -- I would say we're seeing opportunity in both. We hear a lot of talk about reshoring. Some customers have capacity where they're just moving some of their production back into existing footprint. Others are adding footprint to existing facilities. The ground up new facilities, that has a pretty long lead time to it. So it's not that -- we can't really quantify how many new starts there's been. We are a late-stage purchase. If you think about procuring the land, building equipment, putting in the production equipment, staffing and then getting up and running, then you would buy the property maintenance equipment and then the cleaning equipment. So we're pretty late-stage purchase in a long cycle process from a new square footage perspective. But maybe reshoring, onshoring could be a trend that helps us. I think having lived through the challenges post-pandemic with freights and with parts shortages and availability and now looking at continuing geopolitical turmoil. We see -- and you read the same things we do. A lot of companies are considering being in more complete control of their own destiny by having their production close to home or more of their production in one geography or in the geography that serves to eliminate the potential for those other disruptions. So we think that's a positive trend for us as companies have to add square footage and then obviously, it needs to be clean.

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Since there are no further questions at this time, I'll now turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

David W. Huml

Thank you. Before we close, please note that we will be posting to Tennant's IR website a second in our series of quarterly videos that offer a deeper look into our business and growth strategy. You can be notified of each new video by signing up for e-mail alerts at investors.tennantco.com. This concludes our earnings call. Have a nice day.