Since the home building crash of ‘08, there has been a huge spike in mergers and acquisitions of wood truss and wall panel component manufacturers. With all the big players in the market, independents naturally have concerns about staying competitive. Believe it or not, independents still...

Part IV: In-House Computers Ten years after we installed our first computer, our turnaround of truss designs remained unacceptable. But one evening in the late Seventies, I saw daylight when a red, white, and blue van pulled up to our St. Louis office. I recall my wonderment back then, while...

“Good judgement comes from experience. And experience? Well that comes from poor judgement.” Some of us are old enough to remember Dean Martin. Whether he stated this quotation about experience and poor judgment, I will never know. But let’s face facts—it has...

Not quite 20 years ago I interviewed for a position of managing a metal plate connected wood truss manufacturing plant for Anderson Lumber, in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. For several years Anderson had been losing money from their truss operation and higher ups were searching for someone who...

I’m not just a teacher at my Whizard Summits, I’m also a student. I show up to each event ready to share my knowledge, but I also learn a lot from the companies who attend. The major thing I learn about at each of these events are the biggest challenges building material companies...

Optimization… In general, most plants want to mix up the cutting list, while still controlling the order that the members cut by the saw. This allows some gains in waste/cost to be had by combining members but still allows the cut components to be stacked easily according to truss once...

The increased acceleration of city infill and the popularity of apartments is creating the opportunity for frame and truss manufacturing to expand into mid-rise construction, an important growth area for the industry. However, with expansion comes a greater emphasis on quality manufacturing,...

As a follow up to our 9-part “Ready for Change” article series, our next step down the “Lean” path is to introduce other tools and methods to reduce waste and time. The first in this new bi-monthly series focuses on SMED, Single Minute Exchange of Die, and how this...

Computer-simulated product testing is being used increasingly in modern engineering and manufacturing because it provides a low-risk, time- and cost-efficient means of modeling system performance using a wide array of variables before a physical prototype has been created. The following article...

Part Five: Monoliths of the Millennium The movement to taller and broader apartment buildings has impacted every component manufacturer. One such project may occupy estimators and designers for weeks at a time, may overwhelm production, and may confound shipping. It may crowd out smaller...