Pretty much everyone in manufacturing has heard the Toyota example. It’s often held up as the gold standard for quality and continuous improvement, especially the andon cord, which allows any worker to stop the line when something does not seem right. The familiar takeaway is quality...

When I was notified we’d been selected by Construction Tech Review as the Cloud-Based Lumber Purchasing Platform of the Year 2026, I was very surprised, and I hadn’t even known we were nominated. But, as I thought about this news, I realized how grateful I am for the trust and...

Many buildings place mechanical equipment—such as air conditioning units, heaters, or ventilation systems—on the roof. These are known as Roof Top Units (RTUs). Installing this equipment on the roof helps save valuable floor space inside the building. RTUs come in a wide range of...

The name “Bill McAlpine” has such resonance in the component industry that when ITW acquired the company and removed his name, they soon found value in returning to the Alpine moniker. There are many reasons McAlpine earned that singular honor, but one of the least recognized is...

Every truss manufacturer knows this moment. A job should be moving forward, but it isn’t. Sales thinks design has it. Design is waiting on information. Production is asking for answers. Someone opens a file only to realize it is outdated. Nobody feels negligent, yet nothing is...

When designing a truss to be used as a free-spanning structural gable or party wall application, additional dead loads may need to be considered. The MiTek engineering software does not account for self-weight of the truss or for any additional weight of sheathing or drywall being applied to one...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been 70 years in the making since eminent AI pioneer, John McCarthy, coined that term in 1955 to describe “the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior.” Truss software has been 50 years in the making, with scant penetration of AI...

Innovation begins with a question: “What If.” What if lumber became stronger when arranged in triangles and joined with steel plates? What if geometry could live inside a computer instead of on paper? What if building trusses offsite proved better than framing rafters onsite? Every...

Layout programs do a great job with truss-to-truss connectivity and load transfer. But the process is not foolproof and sometimes, loads need to be adjusted. Some applications don’t give you the freedom to make changes to loads after a truss has been analyzed. But Truss Studio does. With...

Thank you to everyone who visited the MiTek booth at this fall’s Building Component Manufacturers Conference (BCMC) in Omaha, NE. For those who walked through our Design & Production Center, we hope you enjoyed the view! [For all photos, See PDF or View in Full Issue.] Our...