Sixty Years of Machines, Part XXX: Linear Saws Go with the Flow Joe Kannapell Downstream and upstream, the linear saw continues to improve the flow of truss manufacturing. Increasingly, cutting and assembly are treated as interdependent processes and have begun to be tied together. Jim Urmson started this, others have followed, and a “cut truss-by-truss”... Read More May 2022 Issue #14274 Page 10
Who is the Most Important Person in Your Truss Operation? Glenn Traylor Who is the most important person in your truss operation? The designer who creates the projects? The guy who signs the check? Without sales there is no business, so is it sales? Let’s make an argument for someone you might take for granted. There is a person who looks at every job –... Read More April 2022 Issue #14273 Page 43
Has More Automation Resulted in Too Little Information to the Truss Builder? Glenn Traylor Today’s technology has made life easier for the truss designer and others in the truss fabrication process. In the early days of the truss industry, we used, reused, and modified existing designs to create new designs using paper, pencil, and a handy Smoley’s Book. Soon we graduated... Read More March 2022 Issue #14272 Page 43
What Can We Do About Missing Connector Plates? Glenn Traylor Previously, we’ve reviewed the top manufacturers’ defects according to a survey of In-house inspections. (See my April 2020 article, “How Do Your Manufacturing Errors Rank on the List?”, for the top ten items and ways to correct them.) While wane in the plated area topped... Read More February 2022 Issue #14271 Page 43
The Last Word: Witnessing Integration at BCMC Joe Kannapell At each BCMC, we’re able to see the evolution of our industry in real time. Right now, we’re seeing how to integrate machines that used to operate independently. These machines, the saws and the tables, have had sixty years of improvements, and a billion dollars of CM investments.... Read More November 2021 Issue #13268 Page 134
Are You Missing an Opportunity to Market Your Product? Glenn Traylor Last month’s article, “Are Your Deliveries Making the Right Impression,” talks about aligning your product so the installers’ first impression is a positive one. Let’s expand this further. I am sure you have noticed the freight trucks on the highway moving product... Read More November 2020 Issue #12256 Page 35
Are Your Deliveries Making the Right Impression? Glenn Traylor So you won the order. Congratulations. The designs and the submittals were approved. Sounds great. The trusses were built with care and meet all of the necessary requirements. Awesome! Does it stop here? No, not really. The customer has not had a chance to really get a rock-solid impression.... Read More October 2020 Issue #12255 Page 35
Going Off the Rails (and Rollers) with Vekta Ed Serrano Vekta is probably best known for our Razer linear saw, and the next product most associated with our company is the Vekta PackFeeder, a lumber infeed system that takes up less space and costs less than anything else on the market. But... Did you know that Vekta has a variety of products designed... Read More October 2020 Issue #12255 Page 62
Are Your Trucks Loaded Correctly? Glenn Traylor Recently while traveling, I photographed a load of structural components being delivered to a jobsite. It was a little of a double-take to comprehend what was on the truck, because our products really shouldn’t be that curved when they’re designed to be flat. As shown in the photo... Read More September 2020 Issue #12254 Page 35
Call It What You Want! Ed Serrano Retrieval system, lumber feeder, lumber pack feeder – the name doesn’t really matter. So, what does matter? The speed matters, the size matters, and the options matter! Vekta’s PackFeeder /retrieval system/ lumber feeder is fast enough to feed two linear saws! ... Read More September 2020 Issue #12254 Page 60