U.S. manufacturers boosted output modestly last month, led by greater production of construction supplies, autos and petroleum products.

Factory production rose 0.2 percent in September, following a decline of 0.5 percent in the previous month, the Federal Reserve said Monday. The broader industrial production category, which includes mining and utilities, ticked up 0.1 percent.

Even with the gain, manufacturing output has been flat in the past year. Factories have been hit by weak business spending on machinery and other equipment, a strong dollar that has made U.S. goods more expensive overseas and sharp cutbacks in oil and gas drilling that have lowered demand for pipeline and other supplies.

Manufacturing output showed signs of life in June and July but fell back sharply in August.

“While better than the August data, which pointed to significant weakness, the September results still only point to a manufacturing sector struggling to grow at an anemic pace,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc.

Mining output rose 0.4 percent last month, though it has fallen 9.4 percent in the past year. Utility production fell 1 percent.

Caterpillar chair/CEO to retire

Caterpillar said Monday that CEO and Chairman Doug Oberhelman will retire from the company next year and will be replaced as CEO by Jim Umpleby, an executive who has worked at the construction and mining equipment company for more than three decades.

Umpleby, 58, will become CEO on Jan. 1.

Oberhelman, 63, will step down as CEO at the end of the year and leave the chairman position at the end of March.

Dave Calhoun will become nonexecutive chairman after Oberhelman retires on March 31. Calhoun is an executive of private equity firm The Blackstone Group.

Caterpillar has been dealing with falling sales because its customers have been hurt by slower global economic growth.

Germany: ‘Autopilot' misleading

German authorities are telling Tesla to stop using the term “autopilot” for its driver-assistance system, saying it is misleading.

The Transport Ministry confirmed in an email that a letter to that effect had been sent to the company based in Palo Alto, Calif.

Autopilot is Tesla's driver-assistance features such as lane maintenance and traffic-aware cruise control. A man was killed in Florida in May when a Tesla Model S with the system on hit a truck.

Tesla said “Autopilot operates in conjunction with the human driver to make driving safer and less stressful” and that the company was clear with customers that they had to pay attention.

THE BOTTOM LINE

$28M The approximate amount that Omnicare will pay to resolve allegations that the drug distributor accepted kickbacks for pushing an anti-seizure medication on doctors treating nursing home patients. The Department of Justice said Monday that the deal resolves claims that Omnicare sought and received the kickbacks from Abbott Laboratories several years ago for sales of Depakote. Omnicare was purchased last year by CVS Health.