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Automation is advancing around the world, but will it yield the quantum leap promised? And how big a margin will it provide over conventional processes? Let’s first assess how various systems affect non-direct-labor inputs to the production process. Later we’ll balance these against...

I have attended my share of trade shows over the years, from work events to leisure activities. Every time I attend, I consider the effort put forth to assemble each booth. Displays range from pop-up displays, while others are thrown together overnight or on strict budgets. Then you come upon...

Too often a repeated mantra within our industry is that everyone sells components at too-low margins. The blame is always on the other guy, meaning the competitor, for selling at a lower margin than what should be market pricing. Well, what can your company do to raise margin pricing? During...

Compliance with ANSI/TPI 1–2014 requires maintaining member to member gaps at less than 1/4 inch. An exception would be for floor truss chord splices where the limit is 1/16 inch. Let us take a look at two different situations, the first being a roof truss and the second being a 4 x 2...

Part 5 in our TIMWOODS Series Piles and piles of production all around you. No, I am not talking about inventory, I am talking about WIP, finished goods/staged jobs—Overproduction. Overproduction is making products in too great a quantity or before actually needed, leading to excessive...

When our Salesman, Ross Black, gave me the plans for the Clark Residence, I knew from the start that this was going to be a special project. I always enjoy working on these large single family custom homes, and this was no exception. For the most part, this home was not too difficult of a...

Lately, competing building materials have been using construction fires as an opportunity to attack wood construction. It’s true; fires do occur in buildings under construction. But they occur in buildings of all material types, including concrete and steel. However, because wood...

A fellow lumberman asked me to describe my ideal style of inventory management, or buying strategies. So, here it is. The best way to describe it is “elasticity.” Imagine the lumber market like the waves and tides of the sea. The tide is predictable...it ebbs and flows with the...

Background The model International Residential Code (IRC) permits a design live load of 30 psf for “sleeping rooms.” The model codes specify 40 psf for all other rooms. Of the annoying floor vibration complaints we have received, the most common scenario stems from the use...

I saw an unexpected jump in the spectrum of employers asking for remote truss designers this year. In 2015–16, some of the big companies were looking for remote designers, but not many smaller companies. Smaller clients didn’t feel that they had the resources to manage the process...