The component industry continues to weather economic uncertainty, but history tells us that construction will help lead the recovery after this pause. When demand returns, it often returns quickly — and manufacturers who have not prepared can find themselves scrambling to keep up. That...

Component manufacturers are operating in a market with little room for waste. Housing demand is difficult to predict. Material prices shift quickly. Labor is expensive and difficult to find. Customers still expect competitive pricing, dependable schedules, and fast turnaround. Those pressures...

There is a classic business parable about a man who ran a highly successful roadside hot dog stand. He was hard of hearing and had poor eyesight, so he never read the newspapers, listened to the radio, or watched the evening news. Instead, he focused entirely on what he did best: making...

One of the most common problems in component manufacturing is not that companies lack effort, experience, or good people. The problem is that many companies are still trying to price, schedule, and measure labor using methods that were never accurate enough for the decisions being made. Board...

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,...

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...

Let’s face it: growth is exciting, scary, and a great problem to tackle. But in component manufacturing, increased demand can quickly expose pressure points on the floor. What once felt smooth starts to feel tight. Work in progress (WIP) builds up and becomes expensive. Teams must work...

The biggest, deepest report on acquisitions, new-store openings, and closures in construction supply makes clear 2025 simultaneously was both the busiest and slowest year for M&A in this decade. Viewed by the number of facilities acquired, 2025 saw 56% more locations acquired than in 2024...

When your team is set up right, performance takes care of itself. In manufacturing, it’s easy to assume better results come from pushing harder – longer shifts, tighter schedules, more pressure on the floor. But the highest performing plants know something different: real performance...

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...