Part 5 in our TIMWOODS Series Piles and piles of production all around you. No, I am not talking about inventory, I am talking about WIP, finished goods/staged jobs—Overproduction. Overproduction is making products in too great a quantity or before actually needed, leading to excessive...

In the wood truss component industry, we have the independents, who are not associated with lumberyards, and then we have those who are owned by lumberyards. What I found striking is that the lumberyard owned and operated component manufacturers (CMs) consistently make far less money than the...

Part 2 in our TIMWOODS Series When we last left off in our series, I introduced you to my friend, TIM WOODS. TIM WOODS is actually an acronym for the eight deadly wastes (Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Over-Processing, Over-Production, Defects, and Skills). While the acronym...

If you are like me, you spend the later part of the year setting goals for the coming year and planning how to accomplish them. For those who work for me, I always set goals, metrics, and participate in a conference on how we are going to achieve what we want together. Over the last few months,...

Can organizational self-assessment and critical reflection help my business? Following-up on last month’s article, which garnered more comments than usual, I think that we should take a bit deeper dive into metal plate connected wood truss permanent bracing from “the...

Continuous Improvement  – Success is achieved, not from the program, but from the mindset Theory of Constraints. The Houlihan Labor Method. Quick Response Manufacturing. Six Sigma. Lean. Total Productive Maintenance. Total Quality Management. The lexicon, tools, and methods...