Richard J. Tobin
President & Chief Executive Officer at Dover
Thank you, Andrey, and good morning everyone. Let's start on Page 3. We are thankful for the extraordinary efforts of our Dover team members, which enabled us to deliver strong operating results amidst challenging conditions during 2021. We are also grateful to our customers who trusted us with their business, while adapting their supply chains and business models to this rapidly changing and demanding environment. The resilience and creativity of our teams and the durability of our customer relationships were the key elements of our success this year and we are committed to build upon those pillars in 2022 and mobilize to deliver another strong year of performance.
All right, let's go on to the quarterly and full year results. We delivered strong and better than expected results in fourth quarter and the full year posting organic revenue growth of 11% and 15%, respectively. Our margin conversion for the year was strong and we delivered segment margin increase of over 200 basis points for the year, driven by volume growth, productivity gains and our center-led enterprise capabilities. We are satisfied with this accomplishment in the face of the well-chronicled input shortages, supply chain constraints and COVID-driven quarantines and absenteeism that became increasingly challenging during the Omicron period of Q4. As we mentioned in the opening remarks, we battled through as best we could under the circumstances, but we cannot help but be very frustrated by the continuing guidance on mandates and deadlines. It seems often that we have learned very little in the past 24 months.
We complemented our strong operational execution with value creating organic and inorganic growth investments. We deployed $1.1 billion in nine highly strategic bolt-on acquisitions and also completed the divestiture of our non-core Foodservice Equipment platform on December 1. These investments advance our deliberate strategy to expand into markets with secular growth opportunities. Recognizing the recent changes to our portfolio and to better reflect the nature of the markets and customer served by our businesses as well as the contributions to revenue growth and profits, we have changed the name of our Fueling Solutions segment to Clean Energy & Fueling and our Refrigeration & Food Equipment segment to Climate & Sustainability Technologies.
Looking ahead to 2022, we entered the year with constructive optimism despite the ever evolving operating environment and geopolitical clouds. We believe that growth conditions are still with us, but it is critical that policies are enacted or not enacted to continue this trajectory. A methodical monetary tightening is deemed necessary and I agree that it is. I would urge caution on the pace of any policy decisions in the regulatory environment or taxation if one wants to preserve GDP expansion trajectory. As COVID and its effects subside, we desperately need policy pragmatism with a bias towards policy that foster economic growth.
Demand conditions across the majority of the portfolio remained favorable, as evidenced by our strong sustained bookings in the fourth quarter and throughout the year with a book-to-bill each quarter above 1, even with the aforementioned double-digit revenue growth. Our backlog of $3.2 billion is up 84% versus this time last year, which allows us to better plan our capacity production and inventory, a major benefit in today's constrained operating environment. While we expect these operational challenges and supply chain and labor availability to continue into early '22, we do not expect operating conditions -- we do expect operating conditions and price material spreads to improve as the year progresses.
We believe we are well positioned to deliver robust topline growth, margin expansion and EPS accretion in 2022. We are therefore forecasting full year revenue guidance of 7% to 9% organic growth and adjusted EPS of $8.45 to $8.65 per share.
I will skip Slide 4, which provides more detailed overview of the results. So let's go on to Slide 5. Engineered Products revenue was up 16% organically in the quarter as demand remained favorable across all businesses. Vehicle services posted a strong topline quarter and market indicators remain positive. Environmental Services group revenue was up year-over-year with both bookings and backlog remaining robust moving into 2022. Industrial Automation demand remained high posting its strongest bookings quarter of the year, while deliveries were negatively impacted by output challenges in America and Europe. Aerospace and Defense posted a solid year-over-year growth with good momentum behind our recent SP acquisition, the recovery of industrial winches continues with all end markets trending positive.
Despite the heightened demand, margin performance in the segment remains negatively impacted by the combination of input cost inflation and input shortages with notable impact from COVID-related absenteeism, particularly late in the quarter where we ran at over 20% rates in some instances, at the height of Omicron. In the fourth quarter, Engineered Products was the only segment that had a negative price cost spread, largely driven by raw materials and logistics costs. This remains our most challenged segment in the current operating environment that we have line of sight to improve margin outlook as the price cost spread turns positive in 2022. Incremental margin conversion is expected to gain steam through the year as we cycle through inventory and we begin shipping off a strong backlog that was priced in the second half of 2021.
Clean Energy & Fueling was down 4% organically in the quarter against a difficult comparable from 2020 when we saw the high watermark of EMV demand. Additionally, volume was constrained by our customers' construction, labor slowdown and component shortages, as well as COVID absenteeism in Europe. Booking trends and backlog in the aboveground business remained constructive. Based on early market feedback and trajectory, we believe that we have a winning product with the Anthem dispenser. Conversely, demand trends for belowground equipment have picked up in North America and deliveries in vehicle wash continued their upward trend, most notably in Access Terminal and Controller business that we acquired a year ago.
Our recent clean energy acquisitions had a minimal impact on our Q4 results. However, backlogs in these businesses are strong. Margins were down in the quarter primarily due to lower volumes, product mix, absenteeism-driven inefficiencies and lost fixed cost absorption. Full year results in this business was strong and better than we initially forecasted early in the year on robust growth, productivity and favorable mix.
Sales in Imaging & Identification grew 3% organically. The core marking and coding business was strong and comparable with volume though a shortage of components and some order pushouts reduced volumes in printers. Our serialization of brand management software business continues to grow ahead of expectations and we're working diligently to add additional resources here as we integrate and scale the business. The digital textile business continues its gradual recovery. It was up against a low bar comparable quarter but it has still not recovered to pre-COVID levels. Q4 margins in Imaging and ID improved by 40 basis points year-over-year as mix and price more than offset cost inflation and input availability issues. Full year results were strong. The segment delivered 8% organic growth and 170 basis points of margin expansion on good volumes and productivity initiatives.
Pumps & Process Solutions posted another strong quarter at 30% organic growth. Revenue for our CPC business was up double-digits. We completed a clean room expansion project for this business in December in anticipation of another strong growth year in 2022. Industrial and biopharma pumps were up on broad-based end customer demand across all geographies. We are pleased with the performance of the flowmeter business within Em-tec, which we acquired in 2020. It's biopharma sales have doubled in 2021. Precision components was up as the business continues its recovery on improving demand in the broader industry exposure. Polymer processing was up in the quarter due to strong demand for pelletizers and gear pumps, as well as strong order rates in recycling equipment and consumables, particularly in the U.S. and China. Margins expanded by a robust 740 basis points in the quarter and 790 basis points for the year on strong volumes, fixed cost absorption, favorable product mix and pricing.
Topline results in Climate & Sustainability Technologies continued to be robust posting 13% organic growth. SWEP, our heat exchanger business capped off the year posting all-time records in bookings revenue and margin and carries a strong backlog into 2022. The business was strong across all geographies and end markets with particularly favorable demand in EMEA for heat pumps driven by regulatory requirements. We have been adding additional capacity in several geographies to meet forecasted future demand.
Belvac, our provider of production solutions for beverage packaging posted a revenue decline in the fourth quarter on difficult comparable, driven by project timing. As you know, this business was up significantly in 2021, part of a multi-year secular shift toward more environmentally friendly aluminum cans with demand far exceeding the current installed capacity.
Demand in our Food Retail business remains robust with elevated bookings and backlog levels. Our Systems business in the U.S. and Europe continued its robust growth in deliveries and orders for natural CO2 refrigeration systems. Demand for door cases remained elevated as well. However, we continue to face labor constraints and sub-component supply shortages that delayed shipments which necessitated intermediate production curtailments negatively impacting margins. We've instituted a number of price increases which we expect to positively contribute to margins and conversion into 2022.
Margins were flat -- largely flat as the quarter, as excellent operating performance in SWEP offset refrigeration headwinds despite the smaller revenue base. This segment demonstrated good progress in 2021 with 22% organic growth after a very modest 3% decline in 2020 and 230 basis point margin expansion despite multiple operational challenges as the year presented. With a strong backlog, we expect a continued robust progress in 2022.
And I'll pass it on to Brad.
