The Manufacturer's Agenda: Monitoring the US Manufacturing Resurgence

We've always been proud of the quantity of data we provide with our annual IW U.S. 500 and IW 50 Best U.S. Manufacturers rankings, but this year we're delivering even more -- and more timely -- information.

With this, the 11th edition, you'll find on our website an IW U.S. 500 stock index, which links to a plethora of real-time reports: related market and sector summaries, news, SEC filings, stock quotes, currency exchange rates, and more. These additions complement the already significant data set we publish each year, which includes a snapshot-in-time of 25 financial data points, the names of top executives and news updates about each company on the list.

Industryweek Com Sites Industryweek com Files Uploads 2013 07 Call Out

With the increased focus among public policy and business leaders on the manufacturing sector, the timing couldn't be better. Combined, the traditional ranking, which I see as an annual report at-a-glance, and the latest updates will help the manufacturing community to regularly take the pulse of the U.S. manufacturing sector.

Along with the IW U.S. 500, we present the 2013 IW 50 Best U.S. Manufacturers ranking, which digs more deeply into important metrics, identifying benchmarks set by the best of the IW U.S. 500 companies.

Many people have argued that a separate manufacturing ranking and data set is not needed, saying that the differences between manufacturing and non-manufacturing companies are not significant. Others discontinued their manufacturing lists decades ago when it appeared that U.S. manufacturing would essentially wither away.

IndustryWeek obviously disagrees.

Through good economic times and bad, we've maintained that running a manufacturing company is different than running a non-manufacturing company. Indeed, we've always viewed manufacturing as the most dynamic, most innovative, most challenging and most important sector of the global economy. When others were happy with (or resigned to) writing off the sector, IndustryWeek stayed true to its mission: to help manufacturing executives build more competitive and more profitable companies.

Find the IndustryWeek U.S. 500 stock index at www.industryweek.com; the 2013 IW U.S. 500 ranking at www.iw.com/IW-US-500; and extensive, continually updated financial reports at http://markets.financialcontent.com/industryweek.

So next time you're looking for a quick answer to a question about a large manufacturer, go directly to the IW U.S. 500. Or better yet, stop by regularly to stay a step ahead of the competition.