IndustryWeek partnered with Mergent Inc. to create the 2009 IW U.S. 500 ranking of the largest publicly held manufacturing companies headquartered in the United States. Located in New York City and Charlotte, N.C., Mergent acquired the Financial Information Services division of Moody's Investors Service in 1998. The organization has been collecting and delivering financial information for more than 100 years. IndustryWeek's relationship with Mergent/Moody's dates back to 1996.

Led by project manager Ricardo Angel, Mergent's global databases were used to identify all publicly held manufacturing firms meeting IW's selection criteria. The actual cutoff for inclusion on this year's IW U.S. 500 list was just under $1.2 billion in revenues.

See Also Breaking Down The 500 A Tale of Two Industries Nordson's 1.1 Billion Reasons for Optimism See The IW U.S. 500

In addition to the team at Mergent, Erik L. Fine, a Charlotte, N.C.-based information consultant involved in the IW 500 since its inception, oversaw the analysis and data-collection effort.

Mergent collected the financial data elements directly from reports distributed by the
corporations.

The IW U.S. 500 includes:

• Manufacturing companies with a majority of their business in a manufacturing industry.
• Companies that generated less than 50% of revenues from manufacturing, but more revenue from manufacturing than the lowest-revenue-producing companies on this year's list.
• Oil and gas companies that derive at least 50% of their revenues from the refining of oil and gas products.
• Companies that derive at least 50% of their revenues from the manufacture of mined materials.