Supply Chain Optimization Rob Bellian With the COVID-19 virus still a live threat, the state of the disruption to supply chains continues to be severe as a number of regions and economies emerge into a very different world. As everyone in business knows, supply chains are critical to supplying goods and services quickly, safely,... Read More December 2022 Issue #14281 Page 64
How Panels Plus Nailed It This Year Tim Grahn This has been a very busy year for Panels Plus with shipments up 47% from 2021. I’m glad to see all the work out there and I’m grateful for the customers that have asked Panels Plus to help them increase their production with our equipment. As we look back on this year and look... Read More December 2022 Issue #14281 Page 70
Lessons From the Great Recession? I remember the Great Recession and how many displaced candidates we had. Some stayed active but many went their way, finding new industries and career paths. From where I sat, it was 5 years of trying to find jobs for folks, knowing it was like finding a needle in a haystack. Single Family was... Read More December 2022 Issue #14281 Page 98
The Last Word: The Last Word on Automated Material Handling Joe Kannapell With automated saws and auto-jigging tables, what remains is automated material handling, and that’s what we find at Builders FirstSource’s (BFS) Austin plant. House of Design’s (HoD) robotic roof line there extends the floor truss pre-plating methodology found at their Atlanta... Read More December 2022 Issue #14281 Page 144
Reap the Rewards and Labor Savings From Wall Lines Wendy Boyd From the BCMC 2022 event, in which we displayed our Framing Line and several other pieces of machinery, it became apparent that our customers are hunting for ways to save labor and costs – which includes producing wall frames for their markets. We were overwhelmed in the Spida booth with... Read More November 2022 Issue #14280 Page 19
Labor Shortages Worse Than Most Understand and Automation is Not Going to Be the Cure-All Solution Todd Drummond Time and again, executives state they are having problems finding enough qualified people to staff all the needed positions within their company. The truth is that this problem will get much worse, and you need to understand why to fix it. TDC has found that companies with the best employee... Read More November 2022 Issue #14280 Page 24
Having a Plan for Tomorrow Tracy Roe The Greek philosopher Heraclitus is credited with the origin of the phrase, The only constant in life is change. This couldn’t be more true in the world we live and work in today. Whether we are enduring labor shortages, a global pandemic, material shortages, input cost increases, or an... Read More November 2022 Issue #14280 Page 44
A Weekend Install and a Packers Home Game Edmond Lim, P.Eng. The majority of our machinery installs are requested to be done over a weekend, usually starting on Friday. A weekend install requires key personnel to give up their weekend in order to minimize production interruption. The weekend of September 30, 2022 in Green Bay, WI was a particularly... Read More November 2022 Issue #14280 Page 52
How Important is Optimization Rob Bellian Today, linear saw technology provides unmatched efficiency with profound differences to productivity, service, and reliability. An automated linear saw can also reduce the lumber cut waste by batching and combining different cuts of various pieces known as lumber optimization. So what is the one... Read More November 2022 Issue #14280 Page 60
The Last Word: The Last Word on Pre-Plating Joe Kannapell Just as Trussmatic brought back hydraulic plate pressing, House of Design has resurrected pre-plating. Both practices proved themselves in the early days of our industry, but both required disciplined shop floor management, and each had limitations. [For all images, See PDF or View in Full... Read More November 2022 Issue #14280 Page 132