It’s Friday, and that means it’s time for some good news to close off the week.

That good news comes from IndustryWeek, a personal favorite of ours. This July, IndustryWeek released on the IW U.S. 500: IndustryWeek’s annual list of the largest publicly held U.S. manufacturers based on revenue.

What the report says is what we all want to hear: that manufacturing is marching ahead. According to IndustryWeek, the IW U.S. 500 saw revenues inch upward 1% to $6.07 trillion in 2012. These are the highest revenues recorded by IndustryWeek to date, and that’s good news for the manufacturing industry.

Total profits did slip downwards about 10%, but IndustryWeek still believes that the growth in the IW U.S. 500 is a good sign of progress in the manufacturing industry. Big-ticket items like vehicles saw weak sales during the recession, but have been slowly rebounding ever since–likely a contributing factor to the growth in the sector.

This news comes around the same time as our earlier reports that manufacturing in Nebraska is doing well, and is still contributing a large amount towards the states overall GDP, at right around 12%.

While this growth isn’t as fast as some experts had hoped for, it’s still a positive gain both for manufacturing companies and for organizations like us who are committed to the long-term success of the industry. If numbers keep slowly climbing like they have for the first half of the year, this should turn out to be a pretty good year for American manufacturing.

The future is always uncertain (no matter what industry you’re in), but news like this ought to make you feel a bit better about the state of the industry and where it’s headed. With continued reshoring and a commitment to closing the skills gap, we think it’s safe to say that American manufacturing will be here to stay.

Enjoy the great news on this beautiful Friday afternoon. If you have a topic you’d like to see discussed, or if you have any question about something we’ve already written about, don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments or !

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Photo courtesy of IndustryWeek.