In hockey, “Dump and Chase” is highly effective depending on how deep the puck is dumped into the opposing team’s defensive zone, and how hard the dumping team will chase and fight to get back possession of the puck. The strategy is to physically punish the defending team and to wear them out to create puck turnovers and scoring opportunities. [For all photos, See PDF or View in Full Issue.]
In lean manufacturing, Just-in-Time is a “Dump and Chase” strategy that can be very efficient and effective by integrating processes, buffers (dumping), and automation (chasing) to build more trusses. A Fully Loaded RetroC is a textbook study of JIT manufacturing that has proven to be highly reliable and flexible. It is a total plant solution that will feed multiple truss tables without wearing out your workers as the RetroC and SpeedCatch will do all the chasing.
Symmetrical Cut-by-Truss Optimization is the intelligence underpinning Enventek’s Lumber PickLine, RetroC, and SpeedCatch systems. The auto-feeding RetroC cuts at such high velocity that sophisticated custom software had to be developed by Enventek to feed the RetroC. What’s more, the Lumber PickLine was born from necessity because forklift lumber picking could not handle the physical demands of the optimized cut-by-truss picks. Having bigger truss batches was another major productivity improvement by leveraging the PickLine to eliminate inefficient “mini-batches,” enabling larger collated truss runs that drastically increase truss build throughput.
A PickLine is more “dump” than “chase.” The lumber picker simply follows a WiFi-enabled tablet, dropping material into the PickLine trough that will bring the lumber up to the SmartConveyor and to the RetroC.
The SmartConveyor live deck serves as the critical JIT buffer between the picker and the RetroC. Did you know that a PickLine can feed any automated saw? For more on that, see my previous article, “Do You Have CapEx Room for 2026?”
The Magic of SpeedCatch is possible with orchestrated lumber picking so that SpeedCatch can collate the cut parts that are spilling out of the RetroC at high velocity, filling four cart slots with up to 30 pieces each in synchronized batches for left and right of the truss build table. For a more detailed explanation of that, see “In-Line Truss Production Starts With Lumber Picking.”
It is human nature to build faster when there are rows of collated lumber carts lined up in front of the truss build tables. It does not take long for a Fully Loaded RetroC to fill all the carts with minimal labor.
When you’re ready to Feed Your Beast and see these efficient and effective systems for yourself, let us know! Inside and out, LimTek Process Organization Technology will help you squeeze out more truss production and deliver quality trusses with shorter lead times to better service your customers by organizing your truss fabrication processes to maximize your investment in automation.