The Last Word: Whole House Builders? Joe Kannapell Why aren’t your trussers designing walls and EWP too, as we said they would twenty-five years ago? To pave their way, we would deliver more intelligent (“IntelliBuilt”) and optimized (“OptiFramed”) software, and builders would provide flawless “BIM”... Read More September 2019 Issue #11242 Page 125
Celebrating 50 Years of Truss Design Innovation, Part XIII Joe Kannapell Part XIII: The Unfinished Whole House By purchasing Alpine, ITW/Truswal strengthened their chances of outflanking MiTek/TrusJoist in building the whole house. At the time of this acquisition in early 2006, we at MiTek had poured many millions into our efforts and had little to show for it.... Read More August 2019 Issue #11241 Page 8
Flame Spread and Code Conformance Guides for Wood Updated Robert Glowinski The work the American Wood Council (AWC) carries out makes it easier for code officials, engineers, designers, and builders to ensure that wood products are used in accordance with the most up-to-date consensus-based building codes. Two AWC publications that support the code and design community... Read More August 2019 Issue #11241 Page 82
Designing Resilience: NEESWood Capstone a Decade Later Jesse Russell In 2009, Simpson Strong-Tie participated in an unprecedented research event to highlight the importance of earthquake-resistant wood construction. The event, the world’s largest earthquake test, was a collaborative Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation project. It teamed... Read More August 2019 Issue #11241 Page 104
Celebrating 50 Years of Truss Design Innovation, Part XII Joe Kannapell Part XII: Walls Get in the Way Just because two CEOs agree to build a computer model of a house in 3 years doesn’t mean it’s feasible. And barely a year into the agreement between TrusJoist and MiTek to merge software, we realized that we couldn’t do it. Meanwhile our... Read More July 2019 Issue #11240 Page 8
Compression or Tension Web Configuration—Which is Better? Glenn Traylor On a recent Quality Assurance Audit at a large facility, we witnessed a floor truss builder carefully spacing out his floor truss webs in the allotted space available with precision and care. He was very meticulous. I asked him why he was doing that and he explained that his in-house inspector... Read More July 2019 Issue #11240 Page 32
Post Frame at a Crossroads—Is This the 11th Hour for the Industry? Sharon Thatcher For several years, there has been a foreboding trend in the post-frame industry: the disappearance of post-frame engineers. At once a strong coalition of devoted proponents who worked diligently on both personal and professional time to promote the industry through research, education and... Read More July 2019 Issue #11240 Page 56
The Hiring Zone: Opportunity Knocks Just a couple of years ago, I went back to the commercial modular/classroom/mobile office plant where I had my first GM job in the ’80s. I was 27 then, am much older now, but one thing hasn’t changed much, technology. The stations had the same kind of equipment, home build when... Read More July 2019 Issue #11240 Page 80
Celebrating 50 Years of Truss Design Innovation, Part XI Joe Kannapell Part XI: A Whole House in the New Millennium We truss designers were outfoxed by an unlikely pair of moguls who knew nothing about truss design. Gene Toombs and Tom Denig, CEOs of MiTek and TrusJoist, without our prompting, announced in 2001 that their companies would join forces to design... Read More June 2019 Issue #11239 Page 8
Do Connectors on Both Sides of a Truss Ever Need to be Placed Exactly? Glenn Traylor Once in a while, I’m asked—Is there ever an occasion when connectors on both sides of the truss need exact placement? Well, the answer might surprise you. There are, in fact, several situations where the top face connector and the bottom face connector need to be exactly... Read More June 2019 Issue #11239 Page 38