This month, we get a sneak peek at a greenfield truss plant that drank from the same punch bowl as some established truss plants to Feed the Beast! Previous articles have highlighted existing truss plants that have literally banked on Enventek’s proven in-line lean manufacturing system to...

Imagine a third-party truss inspector is in the yard checking truss plates as part of quality control. The plate placement diagram indicates the web needs twenty-five teeth; however, the inspector counts twenty. Even though the shop positioned the plates as designed, is the plate placement...

In our October article, Because Good Ingredients Matter, we focus on the word quality and the many ways that MSR lumber has become synonymous with high quality structural building components. Having laid the groundwork for why MSR has become so important for optimizing truss designs and an...

I remember the Great Recession and how many displaced candidates we had. Some stayed active but many went their way, finding new industries and career paths. From where I sat, it was 5 years of trying to find jobs for folks, knowing it was like finding a needle in a haystack. Single Family was...

Reading Thom’s article in last month’s issue, “JobLine Turns 30!”, brought back many great memories of the times I have worked with him. I’ve known Thom for over 25 years and worked with him numerous times, with one of our best projects being the training business...

Not all post-installed mechanical anchors are created equal. There are key differences between screw and expansion anchor types — differences that include how they gain their holding strength, installation requirements, and overall anchor performance. In the following article, field...

After Cal Jureit’s impressive debut at the 1958 NAHB Show, lumberyards and builders across America were anxious to start trussing, but they encountered several obstacles. Their deluge of inquiries couldn’t all be answered, and most were far away from the South Florida source of...

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus is credited with the origin of the phrase, The only constant in life is change. This couldn’t be more true in the world we live and work in today. Whether we are enduring labor shortages, a global pandemic, material shortages, input cost increases, or an...

When I think about JobLine turning 30, my first thought is: how did time go by so fast. Then again, with everything we have done over the years, it makes me smile. We’ve achieved a lot, from pioneering the Candidate Profile, which gives employers a “first interview” and...

I once had the sales representative for a software company looking to secure our business tell me that, in his view, being a truss designer (or panel designer) was like taking a never-ending math test in which any score less than 100% was failure. He was certainly of the “old school”...