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...

Suppose you want an effective incentive program that improves productivity, saves your company labor cost, and rewards your most valued production crews with additional wages. Perhaps you also want to improve the accuracy of your production scheduling that allows for a proper understanding of...

The new 2021 build season is upon us, and everyone seems to be excited about the 2021 opportunities that seem apparent with the robust build economy. Many companies had their most profitable year in 2020, yet others struggled, stating that commodity pricing and covid were their major negative...

Quality, Productivity, and Speed are intertwined and impact each other. Most managers create this Venn diagram in their mind [for image, See PDF or View in Full Issue]. We often hear: “First we need to work on efficiency before we can focus on quality.” “We can’t...

Theory of Constraints (TOC) is not often clearly understood, and it can be confused with Just in Time (JIT). Below is a simplified explanation with some examples about TOC that many should be able to relate to their operations. TOC is an offshoot of lean manufacturing principles. Every...

Despite all the turmoil of the skyrocketing lumber prices, pandemic, and elections, the building industry is doing very well. Hopefully, your company is doing very well, and now your attention is focusing on potential growth for 2021. Most companies are looking for modest tweaks to their current...

I’ve been in the lumber and building materials industry for most of my career and have always had an interest in technology. It seems not too long ago when I was running seminars to display this “new thing” called the internet to dealers; at the time, nobody knew what was going...

Establishing a proper margin to maximize profits for your roof truss component sales is not as easy as most people think. Most do not have a clear understanding of how small changes make a significant impact on the company’s profitability. Making the most profits possible, no matter what...

In the day of a CM’s and framer’s life, lumber buying is considered the most enjoyable and easiest task to perform. Buying lumber is a huge ego booster. By your own admission, lumber is 40–50% of the cost of producing the finished product. I find it simply stunning how very...

Last month’s article, “Investment in Employee Training, Not Just Equipment,” produced a lot of good responses from many readers. Now it is time to offer real solutions to help your company improve productivity and reduce costly errors for your sales team and also all of the...