The path of factory innovation is leading us to automated systems rather than true robotics. Though industrial robotics has been used for 30 years in our industry, it has served mainly as a forerunner to later systems. Its earliest commercialization, the robotic arms of the Koskovich component...

With the resurgence of new home construction we have seen unprecedented interest and growth in our outdoor equipment division.  There are certainly many ways to accomplish the conveying, stacking and banding of the truss package. Numerous truss plants continue to stack trusses manually,...

Oregon is one of the strongest building markets in the country, and Oregon Truss is preparing for the next chapter of our future. Thanks to our founder Wayne Beebe’s foresight to plan for expansion, we have a brand new factory that enables us to maintain normal lead times while our...

The linear saw and auto-jigging reduce plant labor but they don’t increase the selling price of components, like the Blueprint Robotics panelization does, in spades. And, as more plants automate, component sales dollars may actually be eroded by price-cutting in a flat housing market. Is...

German invaders have landed on our shores intent on leapfrogging our component industry. Their huge investment and their unconventional processes are now being tested on a jobsite not far from their high-tech, 200,000 sq. ft. Baltimore plant. Their name, Blueprint Robotics, invokes a...

Part Two: One Example of a Solution Provided By Softright Last month, Part I of this series discussed the problem that our new program, Softright, is designed to fix. We focused on the issues that business owners have with integrating all of their internal systems. In this article, I’d...

Part I: The Problem Softright is Designed to Fix Throughout all of my years in this industry, I’ve always been looking for the next solution that I can offer my customers. In considering the ways in which businesses operate today, we at Keymark have focused on an area where we believe...

Smart Manufacturing You have probably read articles, heard this term used by an equipment manufacturer, and even heard it at a Chamber of Commerce meeting or other local group. Smart Manufacturing covers a broad category of manufacturing with the goal of optimizing the process from concept,...

Once saw and table setups are automated, what about improving the rest of material handling? Can we lessen the 5 “touches” involved: fetching lumber, feeding saws, catching, transporting to tables, and feeding jigs? And can we better account for the cost of these indirect labor...

A lot of people have been talking about production tracking lately, so now is a good time to talk more in depth about some of the issues involved. With increased demand for the handling of metrics, levels of complexity and ever-changing conditions, manufacturers have been moving toward more...