In the 1990s, a storm began brewing in the component business. It started on the Eastern Seaboard when Carolina Builders bought a truss plant in Tidewater, Virginia. Later, it gained strength when Builders Supply & Lumber (BSL) opened a series of greenfield plants. And finally, it reached an even higher intensity when Universal Forest Products (UFP) bought Carroll Shoffner’s 14 truss plants. This storm was wrought by rapid consolidation in the building industry. And the consolidators didn’t hesitate to buy the latest machinery, thereby raising the bar for all incumbent CMs.
As evidence of their earnestness, we received one of our largest machinery orders from BSL’s first plant in 1995. The buyer had no staff, experience, or history in our business, but had generous financing from Pulte Homes, and a charter to win the contractor business vacated by the closing of Lowes Contractor Yards. After touring several plants, they concluded that the roller gantry was the only way to build a truss. Likewise, UFP gained a gantry preference from their former Shoffner plants.
Seeing the business potential, and the need to differentiate ourselves from the competition, we quickly set out to enhance the tracked gantry that we had purchased from Bob LePoire. Foremost on our agenda was the elimination of the rail on the floor. As with Carroll Sanford’s gantry invention, there were patent barriers that delayed our efforts. Among the patent holders was the intrepid Ronnie Wright, whose floor truss machine he aptly named “Fatman” after himself. [For image, see PDF or View in Full Issue.] Fortunately, our development didn’t yet concern a floor truss application, and Ronnie’s patent was near the end of its 17-year life.
In 1998, we debuted our newly patented Roof Glider, which traversed on the outer steel frame of the table instead of a rail on the floor. [For image, see PDF or View in Full Issue.] We finally achieved the long sought after “plates-won’t-fall-off” advantage. The frame was a strong weldment, borrowed from LePoire’s design, that could glide across walkways and maintain consistent plate embedment. Early on, this machine established us as a leader in roof equipment and provided us a platform for continuous improvement.
And fortunately for us, the Roof Glider came to market just in time! Because, also in 1998, BSL ramped up its expansion, fueled by its acquisition by Private Equity. BSL became BFS and adopted the Glider as they continued their unbridled growth. During the same period, 84 Lumber purchased dozens of Gliders for use in its 15 expansion plants.
Midway through our sixty years in the machinery business, strong sales of the Roof Glider gave us the wherewithal to keep innovating our entire line of machinery. Our goal was to create the most productive truss production system. Consequently, when BFS shocked us by installing a competitor’s auto-jigging system in their most productive plant, we had the capacity to respond quickly, and the incentive to protect our considerable market share.
Next Month:
Automated Set-Up
Postscript:
Having been the first foreign-owned CM, the growth of Carolina Builders (CB) as a CM (and ultimate demise under the Stock name) is particularly noteworthy. Soon after British-owned Wolseley PLC acquired CB’s eleven building supply locations in 1986, they purchased Addington-Beaman Lumber and its truss plant in Tidewater, Virginia. In 1990, CB’s management challenged us to provide an equipment expansion plan for the truss plant. Despite our best efforts, CB “couldn’t make the numbers work” and closed the truss plant. Five years later, when the economy reignited their expansion plans, the price of entry had increased greatly, and they had lost much of their market to BFS. In the next dozen years, they struggled to gain critical mass, and finally exited our industry in 2009. Watch for further details in a later article on the consolidators.