The Last Word: Material Handling Bunk-to-Table Joe Kannapell Adding the last links to the chain of material handling – bunk-to-saw and saw-to-table – is intricately executed by Hundegger at Sunpro’s major expansion in St. George, Utah – and it’s cool! Yes, here in the northeastern-most part of the Mojave Desert, the Clyde... Read More September 2024 Issue #16302 Page 154
Advertiser Forum: Correlation, Causation, or Coincidence Anna Stamm Determining a genuine cause and effect relationship can be tricker than it seems. Some situations are obvious, but others may be only coincidental. How do we know for certain? When Causation is Obvious Thankfully, some cause and effect relationships are easy to prove. You fall down and... Read More August 2024 Issue #16301 Page 6
Wall Panel Technology, Part V: Whole House Evolution Joe Kannapell The dream of having a single person model an entire structure was admirable, but developing the software to do that turned into a decade-long struggle. Five years ago, I chronicled the development saga in my series on Fifty Years of Truss Design, Parts XI – XV. As the story told, the... Read More August 2024 Issue #16301 Page 10
Spida’s Jacksonville Open House Wendy Boyd What an amazing week we had in July—we had the privilege of welcoming a number of suppliers and fabricators to our Jacksonville Open Days! This was a tremendous way to welcome everyone to our new facility in Jacksonville, FL. [For photos, See PDF or View in Full Issue.] We really... Read More August 2024 Issue #16301 Page 17
Retaining Profits Amid Margin Compression Todd Drummond What was widely expected has finally happened. Years of very profitable high sales led to vast increases in capacity to meet that demand, but now we have declining sales volume—the classic too much supply versus not enough demand to maintain margins. Some like to call this margin... Read More August 2024 Issue #16301 Page 24
What Can We Learn From the Recent CrowdStrike Debacle? Glenn Traylor In the early morning hours of July 19, 2024, there was a major collapse of world commerce. According to the company CrowdStrike, a defect in a content update to its Falcon cybersecurity defense software for Windows caused a world-wide crash that impacted many businesses, most notably the... Read More August 2024 Issue #16301 Page 33
Doing Your BCMC Homework Edmond Lim, P.Eng. It is that time of year again. With just two months until BCMC 2024 in Milwaukee, WI, here is some BCMC homework as you begin considering capital expenditures (CapEx). It is crucial to go beyond just the financial metrics like ROI and take into account several qualitative factors. And yes, all... Read More August 2024 Issue #16301 Page 40
BCMC 2024 is Around the Corner Alpine Team With only two months until the next Building Component Manufacturers Conference (BCMC), everyone is hard at work preparing for the show! BCMC last year was successful. We look forward to this opportunity each year to connect with our customers, industry professionals as well as showcasing the... Read More August 2024 Issue #16301 Page 47
Playing the Interest Rate Game Carl Villella At the time this article was being written, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the inflation rate for June fell to 3%. Given the stubborn nature of inflation over the past year, the 3% figure was a welcome surprise. Economists and the business community in general already began... Read More August 2024 Issue #16301 Page 53
Economy Still Signaling Growth at Mid-Year But Not Among All Sectors Lesko Financial Services Team The U.S. economy at mid-year continued to show signs of continued resilience and growth—even if such strength remains uneven throughout all sectors. The labor market consistently added jobs in the second quarter but has not kept up with expectations and, more recently, showed signs of... Read More August 2024 Issue #16301 Page 62