When business gets tougher, hidden weaknesses stop being minor frustrations and start becoming profit leaks. Leaders cannot afford recurring quality issues, unclear job status, missed follow-up, or managers spending hours chasing information that should already be visible. Most companies do...

Ghosting has become a common occurrence, but in the hiring world, it carries real consequences. At its core, ghosting happens when one party simply stops responding, even though a level of engagement had been established. In the building components manufacturing industry, and in my role as a...

In my 30+ years in this industry, I’ve seen some of the most sophisticated automation money can buy. We have saws that think faster than humans and auto-jigging systems that move with surgical precision. But here is the cold, hard truth: the most critical piece of infrastructure in your...

Lunar New Year has passed, but its meaning continues to guide our work at Simpson Strong-Tie Viet Nam. Tet is a time of renewal, gratitude, and connection. Each year, our Viet Nam branch honors this tradition together in the office, reinforcing shared purpose and commitment. Established in 2012,...

When I’m frustrated by something, I’ll tend to keep thinking about it, like a problem to be solved. If I can figure out why I’m so irritated, then maybe I can learn from it (rather than only complain about it). Fictional Stories and Real-Life Budgets In the past,...

Good people show up. They work hard. They care. Yet output still stalls, quality still slips, due dates still move, and managers still spend too much of their day answering questions, expediting work, and solving the same problems again and again. Because when work is unclear, effort gets...

Candidates and employers keep asking me the same question — what am I seeing in hiring trends for 2026? The honest answer is “it’s complicated.” The more honest answer is that I don’t think the market has made up its mind yet. It’s April and, under normal...

My March article, “Prevent Scope Creep Becoming ‘Just the Way We Do Things’,” talks about drawing clearer boundaries so extra work doesn’t quietly erode margins, burn out designers, and reset customer expectations. While all of that matters, it would be unrealistic...

Board foot has been used for decades in component manufacturing, and it still serves its purpose for sales reporting, legacy KPIs, and corporate roll ups. There is no need to abandon it. But for scheduling, pricing, and determining how much work a plant can actually handle, board foot alone will...

In the middle of the largest residential construction show in the world, wedged between estimating software and the kitchen and bath aisle, our small booth was focused on one question: where do structural components truly fit in the future of homebuilding? The International Builders Show...