Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from the line of Larry Solow.
Larry Solow - CJS Securities
Good afternoon. John it sounds like sort of mix bag on why a big increase in bookings. It sounds like some of its just some annualized orders, which I imagine will exacerbate the increase on the upside and was there also some inventory rebuilding and some pent-up demand and how do you look at the whole packages. Is it just different buy segment or?
John Ambroseo
It's going to vary a bit by end market application Larry. If you take as an example the business and instrumentation for medical OEM customers, that was really a return to historical buying patterns where most of those customers operated on annual purchase orders and they had moved to shorter-term orders over the past year not only to manage inventory but also to manage what their demand profile looked like. So the fact that they returned annual buying we see as a very positive sign that confidence in their end market has returned.
With respect to other areas, its select capacity expansion as we mentioned or as I mentioned around microelectronics, a very big win within the [OLE] manufacturing space. The scientific market was quite frankly a stunning performance for our team where we grew significantly in terms of bookings and it appears based on other public reports that we've done a pretty good job of capturing share during the quarter.
Larry Solow - CJS Securities
Okay. Then in terms of gross margin, I know you, sounds like you’re pretty much have finished on unwinding the higher priced inventory or there is still sort of a tail to that?
Helene Simonet
Hello, it’s Helene. We actually, it went a little faster than we initially estimated because our inventory turned towards the better.
Larry Solow - CJS Securities
Okay.
Helene Simonet
So there is always a little tail, but it’s smaller and that’s why we also gave the guidance for the gross profit to go up 400 basis points.
Larry Solow - CJS Securities
Right. Then as orders are, it sounds like it’s your $110 million implies that of your guidance, that you could see a little increase sequentially through the year in volume, but we expect gross margin to come up a little bit higher, obviously mix comes into play there, but based on what you see in your backlog today, and obviously well I guess the scientific orders still being a pretty significant piece and being lower margin. Is the 39, 40, a good ballpark figure to use for the year or do you think there is more upside to that?
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