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Determining a genuine cause and effect relationship can be tricker than it seems. Some situations are obvious, but others may be only coincidental. How do we know for certain? When Causation is Obvious Thankfully, some cause and effect relationships are easy to prove. You fall down and...

The dream of having a single person model an entire structure was admirable, but developing the software to do that turned into a decade-long struggle. Five years ago, I chronicled the development saga in my series on Fifty Years of Truss Design, Parts XI – XV. As the story told, the...

What an amazing week we had in July—we had the privilege of welcoming a number of suppliers and fabricators to our Jacksonville Open Days! This was a tremendous way to welcome everyone to our new facility in Jacksonville, FL. [For photos, See PDF or View in Full Issue.] We really...

What was widely expected has finally happened. Years of very profitable high sales led to vast increases in capacity to meet that demand, but now we have declining sales volume—the classic too much supply versus not enough demand to maintain margins. Some like to call this margin...

In the early morning hours of July 19, 2024, there was a major collapse of world commerce. According to the company CrowdStrike, a defect in a content update to its Falcon cybersecurity defense software for Windows caused a world-wide crash that impacted many businesses, most notably the...

It is that time of year again. With just two months until BCMC 2024 in Milwaukee, WI, here is some BCMC homework as you begin considering capital expenditures (CapEx). It is crucial to go beyond just the financial metrics like ROI and take into account several qualitative factors. And yes, all...

With only two months until the next Building Component Manufacturers Conference (BCMC), everyone is hard at work preparing for the show! BCMC last year was successful. We look forward to this opportunity each year to connect with our customers, industry professionals as well as showcasing the...

At the time this article was being written, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the inflation rate for June fell to 3%. Given the stubborn nature of inflation over the past year, the 3% figure was a welcome surprise. Economists and the business community in general already began...

The U.S. economy at mid-year continued to show signs of continued resilience and growth—even if such strength remains uneven throughout all sectors. The labor market consistently added jobs in the second quarter but has not kept up with expectations and, more recently, showed signs of...

If you are production oriented, I’m betting that you have frequently looked at your watch, phone, or computer to see what time it was. Time is a precious commodity, especially when you are supporting production. When I was a kid, first starting out in manufacturing as a sweeper, and came...