The Hiring Zone: Career Moves Before remote design was “the new thing,” designers would relocate to advance. Not just a promotion, but for better pay, better benefits, and stability for the long term. While remote offers flexibility in everything from scheduling to attire, it lacks one thing—proven... Read More February 2019 Issue #11235 Page 78
AWC Releases Third Environment, Energy, and Safety Report Robert Glowinski In late 2018, the American Wood Council released its third biannual AWC Environment, Energy and Safety: Industry Progress Report. Compiled from data collected over the last decade, the report shows that there have been significant improvements by the industry in these three areas, even despite... Read More February 2019 Issue #11235 Page 80
Lumber Briefs: Building a Bullish Lumber Base for Rising Housing Starts Matt Layman In both the lumber and stock markets, there are more disruptions coming in 2019. The immediate influences of government shutdown, mass exodus from stocks, on-going trade war, volatile oil market, fight to suppress interest rates, President Trump’s legal issues, and global economic and... Read More February 2019 Issue #11235 Page 84
Code Corner: New Year, New Code Developments Randy Shackelford Happy new year! A new year brings new developments on the Building Code front. A summary of relevant code activities follows. ICC Update With the end of 2018 and the start of 2019, the ICC Code Development Cycle for the 2021 I-Codes moves into its second year. The Group A cycle online... Read More February 2019 Issue #11235 Page 96
The Last Word: (Another) Last Word on Southern Pine Joe Kannapell, PE Despite our reservations about Southern Pine lumber, the timber industry is betting billions that we’ll buy it. Soon the output of SYP mills will race past other domestic species. Fortunately, technological improvements, both at the saw mill and in our component plants, aim to overcome our... Read More February 2019 Issue #11235 Page 109
Advertiser Forum: The Advertiser By the Numbers Anna Stamm With the New Year just begun, I always like to take a moment to reflect on the year we’ve left behind. Although we (like everyone else) had an assortment of ups and downs in 2018, I definitely think The Advertiser can do a little bragging about having had a great year! So to take a... Read More January 2019 Issue #11234 Page 6
Celebrating 50 Years of Truss Design, Part VI Joe Kannapell, PE Part VI: Desktop Engineering Rocks the Design World One man, an accomplished CM, set out to ramp-up the efficiency of truss designers in the Eighties: Mr. Leonard Sylk. He did it by pioneering the in-house computer, and its user-friendly software. By use of this tool, he envisioned a plant... Read More January 2019 Issue #11234 Page 8
Taking Steps Toward Manufacturing & Distribution Efficiency Ben Hershey As we start the New Year, a focus of many operations will be setting goals to remain competitive. Today’s companies in the LBM/Component/Modular market are looking for ways to drive efficiencies throughout their manufacturing processes. Extending Lean Manufacturing principles and practices... Read More January 2019 Issue #11234 Page 17
(Re)Building in the Caribbean with Deco Truss Mario EspiƱeira, Jr. For 35 years and counting, Deco Truss Company has been exporting trusses and building materials to the Caribbean. Fashions and fads may have changed over those decades, but our commitment to providing quality products on time and on budget has never wavered. And especially in the wake of the... Read More January 2019 Issue #11234 Page 26
Is Automation the Right Direction to Take? Glenn Traylor After recently upgrading to a newer vehicle, I have been amazed at the new safety features. While it’s not self-driving, the features are definitely approaching an autonomous car. The basic functions are things like active cruise control with the “stop&go” function, which... Read More January 2019 Issue #11234 Page 32