Because it measures real output directly, industrial production is a clean cyclical series and one of the four components of the coincident indicator set used in nber-dating. The utilities component, however, is driven by weather and adds noise that has nothing to do with the cycle.
Manufacturing output is the part to watch. It is closely related to ism-manufacturing-pmi but is hard data rather than survey, and it shares the inventory cycle dynamics that make factory activity far more volatile than the economy as a whole.
Example: total IP falls 0.3% but utilities output drops 4.1% on an unusually mild month. Manufacturing output alone rose 0.2%, so the cyclical signal is mildly positive rather than negative.
Related: capacity-utilisation, ism-manufacturing-pmi, nber-dating, durable-goods-orders, business-cycle