In February, one of main stories that everyone was talking about was the weather. Massive snow storms and frigid temperatures kept workers home. Despite this, the manufacturing industry has once again experienced growth.

The Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) released its most recent report on business. According to the numbers, the PMI—the index used by the ISM to measure manufacturing—increased for the ninth consecutive month. In February, the PMI rose 1.9 percent to 53.2, though that number was 0.6 percent below the 12-month average of 53.8. A rating of 50 is considered the benchmark for strong economic activity.

There are four key metrics in the report of which two were up, one dropped and one remained the same. New Orders, which is considered the driving engine behind manufacturing, rebounded from a 13.2 percent decrease in January to an increase of 3.3 percent.

According to Bradley Holcomb, the chair of the ISM Manufacturing Business Survey Committee, the weather did impact the industry and it primarily showed up in the production data.

"Production can be impacted by [weather-related] things like certain plant closings, the inability to get all workers to the job and raw materials inventory, due to shipping and weather problems, and backups at ports," Holcomb said. "That seems to be the story behind February production, with things hopefully getting better as the weather improves in the spring."

The manufacturing industry continues to show strong growth. With the use of manufacturing business software, any company can keep the positive growth coming.