What I Like About Sum+It Todd Drummond It is time to forget about using a truss design program, price book, or square-foot multiplier when estimating roof and floor truss projects. For many decades, truss companies have been looking for ways to dramatically improve their design team’s capacity, but every effort has fallen... Read More July 2019 Issue #11240 Page 41
Linear Saw Optimization to Turn Costs into Benefits Ed Serrano Before buying a linear saw, several common questions will be asked. What is the price? Speed? Accuracy? Most potential customers enquire about support and on-going maintenance. Occasionally, the topic of spare parts and availability is broached, and sporadically someone may throw in a question... Read More July 2019 Issue #11240 Page 66
How Your Plant Can Benefit From a Spida Extruder Wall Panel Framing Line Chris Scott Powered by people, a manual line in an average component plant is composed of a rough opening station, a subcomponent station, a framing station, a squaring station, and a sheathing station. In the configuration, typically 8 people are on this line, and 1000 LNFT of output is the average goal... Read More June 2019 Issue #11239 Page 14
Empower Your Team to Success Ben Hershey When I recently started some restructuring work for a client, I saw a sign posted on the wall. As shown in the image [see PDF or View in Full Issue], it took a sad approach to giving 100% at work. How many of the associates on our teams show up to work on Monday with this attitude and energy... Read More June 2019 Issue #11239 Page 44
The Last Word: I-Joists vs. Floor Trusses Joe Kannapell The advantages of open-web floor trusses are beginning to decelerate the growth of EWP. Though I-Joist sales per housing start have increased about 6% over the last two years, the trend has slowed considerably. Some of the small gain is due to the continuation of the replacement of solid-sawn... Read More June 2019 Issue #11239 Page 113
Celebrating 50 Years of Truss Design Innovation, Part X Joe Kannapell Part X: Windows Works Its Magic When David McQuinn recommended Windows to MiTek’s management in 1990, few expected that Microsoft could compete with the two giants of the computer industry: Hewlett Packard and IBM. HP was the dominant provider of engineering computers. For a decade, its... Read More May 2019 Issue #11238 Page 8
An Effective Productivity Incentive Program for Truss Manufacturing Todd Drummond It is possible to give your shop employees a raise and actually achieve more capacity through greater productivity and make more net profit for your company by implementing an effective productivity incentive program. However, most of the incentive programs (IP) that are touted in the component... Read More May 2019 Issue #11238 Page 41
The Last Word: The Last Word on Wall Framing Joe Kannapell Finally, from top to bottom, the building industry is moving to panelize. National builders, like Pulte, are mandating it. Local building supply yards, like 84 Lumber’s, are building them in backyard sheds. And in between, BMC and BFS are shipping knocked-down versions. We laid the... Read More May 2019 Issue #11238 Page 105
Celebrating 50 Years of Truss Design Innovation, Part IX Joe Kannapell Part IX: Windows into Truss Design Two unstoppable waves merged to form the tsunami that swept over truss design in the 1990s. The first was the mass commercialization of the PC, accelerated by Michael Dell in the late 1980s. The second was the graphical user interface (GUI), exploited by our... Read More April 2019 Issue #11237 Page 8
Better Net Profits, Not Hyped-Up Business Philosophies Todd Drummond Whether your company is a single-location or a huge multi-location operation, 2018 should have been a banner year for profits for your company. Most of my clients were in the high teens and many were in the mid-twenties for net profit to total sales. How well did your company perform in... Read More April 2019 Issue #11237 Page 19