Remembering the āIā in BIM Steve Mickley Building Information Modeling (BIM) has started to become a common practice in the architectural, engineering, construction, and facilities management industries. The benefits of BIM have been recognized in commercial and industrial development, but the potential of BIM technology to facilitate... Read More May 2018 Issue #10226 Page 46
Technology, Progress, and Human Interaction Steve Shrader Last month, I talked about how things were “back in the day” as compared to now. The Servo Revolution is upon us, and we must all work to keep up with technology. Modern technology drives our businesses, both literally and figuratively. Even so, technology is not the sole element in... Read More April 2018 Issue #10225 Page 32
Technology, Progress, and Our Evolving Businesses Steve Shrader Technology certainly has changed the way I do my job. In fact, in many ways, it’s changed the entire industry I’ve chosen to build a career in. When I graduated with a Construction Management Degree, the construction industry was wide open. But selling production saws for the Wood... Read More March 2018 Issue #10224 Page 34
Break Through Your Box Ben Hershey How many times have you seen your competitor or other businesses in your area copy what you produce or offer? Maybe it is the kind of company that takes a photo of some trusses, puts themselves in front of it, and says, “Look at me, I am the same kind of company they are.” Flattery... Read More March 2018 Issue #10224 Page 43
Disruptive Innovation with LBM/Component Companies Ben Hershey Over the years, our industry has seen a lot of innovation in how we handle materials, how we manufacture, and how we take a house from an idea to a component using the computer. But, over the past few years, we have seen an acceleration in big ideas, disruption, and what we can do using... Read More February 2018 Issue #10223 Page 46
The Last Word: Will the Component Industry Be Next? Joe Kannapell Disrupters have destroyed retail chains (Jeff Bezos at Amazon.com), threatened the car industry (Elon Musk at Tesla), and are now targeting the component industry (Bill Gates et. al.)? Mr. Gates and leading venture capitalists have placed separate bets totaling nearly a Billion dollars that they... Read More February 2018 Issue #10223 Page 107
The Last Word: The Last Word on Fitness Joe Kannapell Only one part of our being can be fairly gauged: our physical heath. Our other parts—the mental, emotional, or spiritual aspects don’t register on any objective scale. But if we get a handle on that one part, we do gain insight on the others. We can gain this data via our... Read More October 2017 Issue #10219 Page 103
Advertiser Forum: The (In)Fallibility of Technology Anna Stamm Here in the 21st century, we like to believe that technology is infallible. Computers and circuits, electrical impulses and networks—if everything is in proper working order, won’t it all work perfectly? It’s reassuring to believe that people make mistakes while computers... Read More June 2017 Issue #10215 Page 4
Resurgence of Panelization? Joe Kannapell What future does the Blueprint Robotics factory in Baltimore portend for housing construction? This huge German plant certainly rivals Pulte’s former facility in the same market (shuttered in 2008). And it may even eclipse the robotics/automation going forward in multiple truss plants IF... Read More May 2017 Issue #10214 Page 6
Robotics in the LBM & Component Industry Ben Hershey A book I read in 2015, “Rise of the Robots,” by Martin Ford, talked about the threat many people see that robots present to the employment marketplace. At the time, I was working with several different equipment manufacturers and clients on their automated/robotic equipment... Read More May 2017 Issue #10214 Page 48