Incremental CapEx and Accelerated ROI Edmond Lim, P.Eng. Dealing with the industry’s long machinery lead times actually has given everyone an opportunity to get creative, to stop procrastinating, and to complete those naggingly important process improvement projects — even though that’s easier said than done! This month, I am... Read More May 2023 Issue #15286 Page 50
Building Your Own Home – Part III: Permits, Inspections, and Scheduling With the loan in-hand, for construction to begin the next hurdle is permits. In my case, I received a combined shop/home permit, rather than separate permits for our house and then our shop. Even the building commissioner said I had put the cart before the horse, but we needed to build the shop... Read More May 2023 Issue #15286
Design Connections: Training New Designers Geordie Secord Last month’s article, “The Designer Shortage—Where Can We Find Them?”, offered some suggestions for finding new component designers. This month, I have some suggestions for training those new hires effectively. And bear in mind, as I mentioned last month, I think it is... Read More May 2023 Issue #15286 Page 80
Spida Machinery’s Automated Apollo Saw—Evolution Tony McCoy Back in the fall of 2001, when I was a component manufacturer, Bevan Lines, Director of Spida Machinery, came to a sales meeting in Southaven, MS, to introduce our sales team to the first automated pull saw in the truss industry — the Computerized Spida Saw, better known as the CSS. The... Read More April 2023 Issue #15285 Page 17
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
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
From Pull Saw to PieceMaker Linear Saw Tony McCoy Immediately after I graduated from high school, my father, never one for complacency, sent me out to find a job for the summer. I remember walking into a local lumber yard looking for work. The gentleman I spoke with didn’t have a position, but he knew that the production manager at a... Read More March 2023 Issue #15284 Page 17
How One Wood Truss Industry Leader Uses Industrial Engineering Practices of Work Minutes to Excel Todd Drummond We can always learn things from industry leaders, whether we work with them directly or simply appreciate what they have accomplished. A perfect example comes from A-1 Industries and their commitment to using industrial engineering practices and work minutes. Although TDC has not performed... Read More March 2023 Issue #15284 Page 25
Does Your Plant Have a Culture of Quality? Glenn Traylor Quality, productivity, and speed are intertwined and impact each other. My previous article, Where is Your Focus on Manufacturing?, emphasizes that improving quality starts with implementation of the ANSI/TPI 1 standard—and, with that process, you will improve proficiency and speed. The... Read More March 2023 Issue #15284 Page 35