We’ve got a long way to climb after the fall we just took, but at least we’re climbing.

That’s the good news for the manufacturing industry in the recent semiannual economic forecast from the Institute of Supply Management. The ISM reports that among purchasing and supply chain executives:

Expectations for 2010 are positive as 60% of survey respondents expect revenues to be greater in 2010 than in 2009. The panel of purchasing and supply executives expects a 5.7% net increase in overall revenues for 2010, compared to a 10.7% decrease reported for 2009.

Already, wholesale inventories are rebounding, ticking up 0.3% in October, the most recent tally, and besting analysts’ predictions of a 0.5% slump. Wholesale inventories decreased in every month this year leading up to October, so even a slight reversal is big news. And although lean purists might decry an increase in inventory, I wouldn’t step in to halt this surge. I think most manufacturers are so shell-shocked from last year’s fall that there’s little chance of their becoming over-exuberant. They’ll produce what market demand tells them to produce.

And after years of playing second fiddle to a bustling service sector, the American manufacturing industry is forcing its way back into the limelight. Manufacturers expect revenue to jump 5.7% in 2010, while service providers anticipate just a 1.3% increase. As some observers have pointed out, this may hinder our jobs recovery, since the service sector far outweighs the industrial side of the economy. According to the ISM report, service industries expect labor and benefit costs to hold steady in 2010. Manufacturing jobs may return, though, since respondents expect manufacturing’s labor and benefit costs to rise 1.4% in 2010.

The Atlantic’s Daniel Indiviglio offers a good analysis of the divergent fortunes of the manufacturing and service sectors here.

This is the moment of resurgence. Lean manufacturers will remain lean, producing only enough goods to satisfy the first bites of a consumer emerging from hibernation. Some, of course, will get ahead of themselves, but for the most part I think the recession we just experienced acted as a natural backstop for the over-exuberance of yesteryear. We may be back where we started, but we’re wiser for the journey.

What about you: Has demand returned to your market? Are you keeping inventory in check?