A Tailor-Made Lean Lumber Picking Solution Edmond Lim, P.Eng. The implementation of a Lumber PickLine is a quick study in lean manufacturing tailor-made for each component plant’s building constraints and saws. A Lumber PickLine can semi-automatically feed any linear saw or any component saw. A saw that is fed lumber from a PickLine is a just-in-time... Read More April 2023 Issue #15285 Page 47
Backwards Compatibility: Unlocking the Full Potential of Your Investment Rob Bellian Backwards compatibility is a feature that allows newer versions of software or hardware to successfully work with older versions. This point came to mind during my recent visit to one of our long-time Vekta customers. This plant in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne, Australia has been operating... Read More April 2023 Issue #15285 Page 54
How High Will Interest Rates Go? Carl Villella A question everyone has been asking lately – how high will interest rates go this year – got a new possible answer in March. As usual, the predicable became unpredictable again. This time, it is the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), and the ensuing danger it posed for the... Read More April 2023 Issue #15285 Page 65
Building Your Own Home – Part II: One Home, Two Loans Homeowners usually have to deal with obtaining a mortgage when buying a home, but they seldom need to convince a bank to loan them the same amount on a piece of dirt, with promises to make a home worth a mortgage. As the Homeowner/General Contractor, I not only had to qualify for the loan, I had... Read More April 2023 Issue #15285 Page 72
Design Connections: The Designer Shortage—Where Can We Find Them Geordie Secord A challenge for the component industry is brewing no matter if you are located in an area where new home construction continues to be strong or your market is slowed by the combined effects of high interest rates and stubbornly high inflation. Be it single family or multi-family, new designers... Read More April 2023 Issue #15285 Page 78
Truss Design Value Comparison Tables David Conner Timber Products Inspection has compiled design value comparison tables for several popular species and species groups as a helpful tool for truss manufacturers to determine if a lumber grade and/or lumber species substitution satisfies the original truss design. The data used comes from the 2018... Read More April 2023 Issue #15285 Page 84
Glued Roof Trusses Tuomo Poutanen In my previous article, The Evolution of Glued Trussed Joists, in the August 2021 issue, I explain that glued trusses have potential in floors. The new G-joist has high resistance. The chord shear failure is eliminated as the web finger punches the chord. The web-chord glue area is big. The mean... Read More April 2023 Issue #15285 Page 94
Bracing on Truss Design Drawings MiTek Staff Trusses are designed as individual components to resist the in-plane stresses resulting from the loads applied in the same in-plane direction. To resist out of plane forces, adequate bracing/restraint is required. In absence of designed temporary and permanent bracing plans, BCSI (Building... Read More April 2023 Issue #15285 Page 104
How to Accommodate Misplaced Shearwall Anchorage Simpson Strong-Tie Staff For several years, the Simpson Strong-Tie Strong-Wall® research and development team has kicked around the idea of developing an “adapter” that would allow for field substitutions or accommodate misplaced Strong-Wall anchorage. The Strong-Wall WSWH high-strength wood shearwall... Read More April 2023 Issue #15285 Page 108
The Last Word: LBMs and the Component Business Joe Kannapell The contemporary consolidations within the Lumber and Building Materials (LBM) business were prompted by consolidations within the home improvement retail industry. Home Depot started the movement in 1979, and its dramatic growth forced Lowes to follow it, converting its stores into mostly... Read More April 2023 Issue #15285 Page 136