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The Difficulty of Differing Deflection: Improving the Performance & Serviceability of Trusses

Communication is key to a successful construction project.

The Beauty of a Blank Canvas

A-1 takes a start-from-scratch approach to training new recruits.

Building Big on a Small Scale

A sideline in heavy timber is a striking support to the main business of Rehkemper & Son.

 

We’ve Got Work To Do…

Roughly 60 years after their inception, roof trusses are well-established in the market, a cornerstone of residential framing. Their natural counterpart, floor trusses, are quite possibly the most misunderstood product offered by our industry.

Parting Shots

In 2001, WoodWords (later renamed SBC Magazine) began dedicating its June/July issue to a summary of the industry’s concerns and the activities of SBCA’s annual legislative conference. That tradition continued through 2014.

 

Faces of the Industry: Dave Motter (Professional Engineer, Louws Truss)

“I’m excited about the opportunity to do some good marketing with the Framing the American dream project.”

Illustrating Value

The worth of one’s efforts is sometimes a difficult thing to communicate to others, whether they be customers, employees or, in SBCA’s case, members. It helps to have a concrete example that illustrates the value your work provides.

 

Implementing What You Learned at BCMC: Get the Right People & Keep Them

  • The focus should be on developing a system each company can continuously evolve in order to avoid becoming stagnant as the market improves. 
  • In order to bring in qualified people, initially, companies need to define, write out and fine-tune a recruitment process.
  • You need to develop a pipeline of candidates and not wait for the need to arise.  

Become the “Go-To” Person in Your Market

  • Component manufacturers have to be proactive locally in pursuing those outside the industry, including building officials, members of the fire service, specifiers, framers and lawmakers.
  • It’s not hard to put a value on having eyes and ears like theirs in the market, when they are willing to look out for your business while they’re doing their jobs.
  • The more smoothly the installation of CM products goes, the less issues we have to confront in the field and the less we have to overcome challenging building code provisions, the more builders will want to buy and install our products.

The Turnkey Movement Is Here

  • Inadequate communication can fragment the various trades working on a project and lead to costly mistakes and frustrating delays.
  • GCs are looking to turnkey framing as a way to minimize that fragmentation and reduce waste and the potential for mistakes.
  • The efficiencies of the turnkey approach with componentized framing make it the best solution going forward.

Implementing What You Learned at BCMC: Build an Effective Truss Design Department

  • Before a new truss designer designs their first truss, it’s a good idea to have technicians work as a helper on a truss production team.
  • Understand the personal characteristics, education and knowledge of your plant personnel because often talent is there that is unexplored and unrealized.
  • Training a new designer is an ongoing process that takes time. When you have good designers trained, you will want to do everything you can to keep them employed with you.

Implementing What You Learned at BCMC: The SCORE Advantage

  • SCORE’s focus on best practices and risk management helps protect the component business and saves CMs on precious training resources.  
  • In an effort to make the program and costs more understandable, SCORE certification requirements have been streamlined, while still focusing on industry best practices that matter most to CM customers.
  • The new package pricing gives CMs the opportunity to meet SCORE requirements, at a reduced cost, and begin to reap the benefits from key SBCA programs and products.

Top 10 Employee Training Tools: Quality Control

Quality doesn't just happen automatically.

Truss Industry Standard of Care Issues: Part 2

The purpose of this article series is to identify truss-related structural issues sometimes missed due to the day-in and day-out demands of truss design/production and the fragmented building design review and approval process. This series will explore issues in the building market that are not normally focused upon, and provide recommended best-practice guidance.

Implementing What You Learned at BCMC: Plan Where You Are Going

  • In order for a company to grow successfully, it needs to evaluate its current situation and costs accurately and be able to articulate what the company wants to grow into. 
  • To improve production areas, start with the “5S” approach: sort, straighten, scrub/sanitize, schedule and finally, score the result. 
  • The right people, the right customers, the right vendors, and most importantly, the right motives grow a successful business.

The Four-Letter Word that Helped My Business

  • Incoming SBCA President Rick Parrino sees a lot of opportunity for the industry to grow and further change the way homes are framed.
  • Parrino shares his experiences getting to know local building officials, giving educational presentations and trying to be a good resource for builders, framers, specifiers, firefighters  and code officials.  
  • Parrino’s goal is to encourage CMs to begin building more relationships with the individuals inside our local markets that can have a big impact on our business.

Unifying the Framing Industry Through Safety

  • When it comes to jobsite safety, fragmentation within the construction industry creates obstacles that shouldn’t be there (and don’t have to be).  
  • It’s very difficult for framing companies to develop a consistent culture of safety when the jobsite-specific safety plan changes from jobsite to jobsite.
  • FrameSAFE provides a standardized approach to safety communication and shares universal best practices when it comes to safe behavior and jobsite hazard mitigation.

Truss Industry Standard of Care Issues: Part 1

Explore the fragmented
building design review and approval process, and the
issues it can create for component manufacturers.