“I think this will work,” said Dick Rotto at the unveiling of auto-jigging at the 1988 BCMC in Nashville. This was a high compliment from the founder of the most prolific truss business, Trussway, Inc. And Dick had no equipment compatible with auto-jigging in his highly productive...

Thirty years ago, equipment installations looked considerably different. Often, the equipment was installed using the customer’s maintenance staff and even the truss building crew. Working with new crews on a weekly basis, who were skilled in component manufacturing but had limited...

Does this sound familiar? A truss fabricator makes the decision to invest in their business to increase capacity. They buy the latest and greatest automated saw, automated jigging system, or even a projection system. The new machinery is guaranteed to increase throughput versus what they are...

Alpine has a long, proven history of bringing engineering and software together to produce better results for Component Manufacturers. Alpine’s IntelliVIEW design software, industry-leading engineering analysis, and efficient design tools provide designers everything they need to get the...

In the 1990s, a storm began brewing in the component business. It started on the Eastern Seaboard when Carolina Builders bought a truss plant in Tidewater, Virginia. Later, it gained strength when Builders Supply & Lumber (BSL) opened a series of greenfield plants. And finally, it reached an...

What a diverse, interesting, and sometimes scary world we live in. As we navigate our own patch of turf and crystal ball gaze about what the future holds, we are mindful of the differences in the world business landscape. Spida Machinery operates three distinct manufacturing facilities, in...

Price, speed, accuracy, footprint, service, and support. Those are the most common features considered when it comes to purchasing a linear saw. And, yes, they are important, but a linear saw is nothing but powder-coated steel and a blade until it’s told what to do. That’s why what...

My name may seem familiar or even confusing to some since I share it with my father. We, like every father and son, have our similarities and differences. We share drive, integrity, honesty, and the significance of one’s character. We do have differences as well and one of them is how we...

One glaring gantry glitch, truss plates falling off, still needed to be addressed in the early 1990s. Missing bottom plates interrupt production, or worse, compromise quality. Sometimes an uneven table surface is the cause. But often the gantry mechanism is to blame. Tolerances are surprisingly...

Decades ago, I learned the value of a dollar as many of us did from our parents and grandparents. At that time, our industry was predominately family businesses. I don’t recall discussing age, however as we grow older, age is simply a number. That was never more evident in our family...