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Top 10 Employee Training Tools: Production Training

Providing continual training and professional growth opportunities not only strengthens your workforce, it makes a huge difference in retaining your most valuable asset.

Grooming a New Generation of Leaders

  • We need to focus on our younger employees now and groom them to become the next generation of leaders in our companies and in our industry.
  • Just like raising kids, building leaders is accomplished through a million small conversations, learning moments, completed tasks and informal evaluations with feedback.
  • There has to be a commitment on your part to ensure the employees you mentor learn everything they can about their jobs and the business.

Doing More with Less Requires a Better Approach

  • Successfully constructing a building today takes effective communication and collaboration between building architects, structural designers, component manufacturers and framing labor contractors.
  • NFC’s first focus is to develop a national safety program for framing contractors.
  • NFC also plans to develop a scope of work document outlining standard responsibilities for framers and subcontractors.

Connecting Wood Trusses to Braced Wall Panels

  • The 2012 IRC does not provide sufficient details on how to connect wood trusses to braced wall panels.
  • SBCA has developed a couple of details and will continue to develop standard details that provide code-compliant connections between roof/floor trusses and braced wall panels.
  • Component manufacturers can provide framers with specialty or standardized blocking panel products to reduce the time needed to install the blocking between trusses for these connections.

 

Find Your Niche: Putting Your Expertise on a Pedestal

Involvement in the initial design and engineering phase of each project helps UTS set itself apart as a true partner instead of just another supplier.

Framing a House in Three Days: Optimization Is a Key Component

When designed and installed correctly, components can greatly reduce the time and materials required to frame a structure. 

Top 10 Employee Training Tools

In upcoming issues of SBC Magazine, we are going to look at the top ten training needs for component manufacturers, walk through the issues associated with each of those training needs, and provide guidance on industry best practices for offering basic through advanced training.

Parting Shots

By creating national standards, based on field-tested best practices, the National Framers Council (NFC) will not only help improve the safety of each worker on the jobsite, it will aid in reducing ambiguity in everything from OSHA jobsite inspections to residential fall protection. 

The Complete Package

  • The most effective way to avoid recurrent issues with component installation is to give an SBCA Jobsite Package to the general contractor and framing crew on every job.
  • Simply having your driver drop the Jobsite Package off with the component package at the jobsite isn’t enough.
  • Anytime you work with a GC or an inexperienced crew for the first time, consider visiting with them ahead of delivery and walk them through the information in the jobsite package.

Installation & Fastening of Wood Structural Panel Wall Bracing

  • Use of galvanized box nails may result in shear walls with a shear capacity significantly below the nominal unit shear capacities given in SDPWS.
  • Thus, the majority of WSP shear walls have a shear capacity with a high degree of design value variability. This may have unintended consequences that are unknown and unappreciated by the professional engineering and/or building design community.
  • Once SBCA and SBCRI were certain their testing and engineering analysis was consistent and repeatable, they were persistent in bringing all WSP shear wall performance issues to the attention of APA, AWC, ICC-ES and ICC.  

The Holy Truss

Ever have one of those component jobs where everything went exactly to plan, only to have a hiccup at the last moment? 

Perfect Form: The Value of Engineering & a Well-Executed Plan

Last summer, Superstorm Sandy caused an estimated $65 billion worth of damage in the U.S., a total surpassed only by Hurricane Katrina in American history. Sandy was the largest hurricane on record to hit the Atlantic Coast, at over 1,100 miles in diameter. So while it hit the New Jersey shores the hardest, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, its disastrous effects were felt as far inland as Wisconsin and Michigan.

While the chaos and destruction wrought by this powerful natural force is sobering, it’s hard not to simultaneously focus on the positive stories that came out of such events. One such story is that of Cussewago Truss LLC in Cambridge Springs, PA. It’s a tale of the marvels of wood, the value of engineering and the fruits of a well-executed plan.

Long (Attention) Span: Trusses Over 60 Feet Present Bracing Challenges

"There's something wrong with your trusses!"

Finding Balance

Design efficiency is critical, but it can’t overshadow design quality.

 

Keeping Our Customers Safe Is Good Business

  • The National Framers Council (NFC) was formed as a council of SBCA to give framers a national organization that will focus on best practices in jobsite safety and building material installation.
  • NFC’s goal is for each framer to leave the jobsite every day in the same health as when they arrived.
  • The more framers and CMs interact, the more we will be able to identify framing and component implementation issues in the field and find solutions where both industries win.

Safety? Seguridad? It’s the Same in Any Language

  • If you frequently or generally need to provide other instruction/training or everyday communication in Spanish, OSHA says you also need to provide your safety training in Spanish.
  • Several of SBCA’s component manufacturing, industry-specific programs are available in English and Spanish.

The Hidden Costs of Optimization, Part II

  • Understanding how the computer software automatically loads a truss can help designers avoid unintended consequences when optimizing trusses.
  • When fascia loads are missing from a project, there is incorrect loading on the jack trusses, sub girders and the corner girder/hip jack.
  • Missing loads can lead to extensive repairs and may even require that the trusses be revised. 

The Professional Services Endorsement—BEWARE!

Understanding your CGL policy—and its limitations—is an important component of every truss manufacturer’s risk management and liability avoidance strategy.