Why did most of today’s saw technology come from small shops and not from large machinery companies? And how could just a handful of not well-known people, working in remote locations, make such a difference? Until recent years, they didn’t make much money. Most sold their businesses...

Entering the new Millennium, the linear fed saw needed to be reborn. Though CMs had boosted productivity with bolted-on improvements to their Metra-Cut type saws, they still couldn’t keep up with automated component saws. Yet they remained an essential part of the saw shop, even though...

Is component manufacturing ripe for disruption? Two foreign-backed entities came to our shores and tried to do just that for six years: Katerra with billions and Blueprint Robotics with many millions. Both were going to teach us how to build better, but with entirely different approaches. Out...

Before the Cyber Saw was introduced, I saw its PLC “brain” control the machines on a GM assembly line. From the conference room at General Electric’s PLC factory, I was able to watch a live display of the automation systems it powered. While most were “Greek” to me,...

With surging housing demand, 1981 was much like 2021. Yet, in the midst of overflowing residential orders, a gutsy CM decided to take a chance on a different line of business. His painful memories of housing’s boom-bust cycles, and his Harvard education, told him to diversify. Ricks...

An automation battle was brewing in the late 1980s, but the first skirmish wasn’t over machinery. It was over software. Software that would minimize more than just the manual labor, but also the “thinking” done by machine operators. The time finally arrived when, after decades...

Who will step forward to direct the increasing automation of our truss plants? Only the best qualified need apply. For example, people with the discipline of Dick Rotto, the in-plant experience of John Houlihan, and the analytical skills of Keith Fell. Each of whom possessed unique abilities...

We suppliers had to escape the bind that Jerry Koskovich’s automation portended. We had been chastened by our CMs’ excitement viewing his Auto Omni Saw at the 1988 BCMC. Then we were shocked shortly thereafter when one of our leading customers, Tom Nomeland at Superior Truss (now...

“Make more eye contact,” Dick Marriott once told me after a sales call. Since then, I’ve been practicing the art. But, after Covid, people often avert their eyes when I encounter them. And their eyes are all I can see over their masks. Do they believe the virus can be...

The future of automation was on display at the 1988 BCMC, but few of us recognized it. Two leading truss plant owners did, however: Lenny Sylk of Shelter Systems and Dick Rotto of Trussway. Lenny’s purchase of the automated saw encouraged others to follow suit. Dick demurred on the...