About one quarter of the German gross domestic product is produced in manufacturing. The Monthly Report for Establishments from Manufacturing and Mining conducted by the Statistical Offices includes information on various characteristics of manufacturing firms. The Research Data Centres of the Statistical Offices offer a panel version of the data from this survey that covers the years from 1995 to 2004, and that has been augmented by information from the Annual Survey of Small Manufacturing Establishments (with less than 20 employees) for 1995 to 2002. In this paper the research potential of these panel data is illustrated by three examples dealing with job turnover by firm size, entry and exit of firms, and exports and productivity.