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SBCA’s redesign of sbcindustry.com puts tools and best practices at your fingertips
Learn how one CM finds success recruiting students
A CM turned state lawmaker uses business experience to help others.
One CM has been selling wood waste as sawdust for the past 25 years
SBCA is moving in a new direction to serve you even better.
“In the almost five decades I have been in the component manufacturing business, I have never had a lumber mill ask me what I thought they should produce,” said Bob Ward (Southern Components). “They didn’t care what I needed; instead, I had to choose from what they provided.”
While frustrating for component manufacturers like Ward, and less than optimal for both sides, the top-down model of lumber suppliers dictating the lumber properties they sell and essentially telling their customers, “if you do not buy what we produce, we’ll sell it to someone else,” has been standard operating procedure throughout the years.
Implementing employee evaluations effectively can improve collaboration.
SBCRI Testing & SBCA Research Reports can transform your market.
Explore the two different methods used to calculate a wall panel’s capacity to resist applied lateral loads.
- 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.
- By approaching engineering and testing through the eyes of framers, NFC can make the framing process more reliable and cost effective.
- SBCRI is fully capable of testing any type of full-scale assembly, which can provide framing contractors great insight into the performance of the products they use on a daily basis.
- Testing raw materials, products and structural systems will ensure that framers understand real performance and derive maximum value from the product or engineered solution.
All three of these experts agreed on the bottom line: pull out and dust off all of your owner’s manuals.
Housing is fixed.
At least that is the belief of most members of Congress, based on feedback from lawmakers and legislative staffers on Capitol Hill. If you were to only listen to the national media to formulate an opinion on housing, you would probably reach a similar conclusion. While it is true that the residential construction market has definitely improved, with April housing starts over 850,000 and total U.S. permits just over one million, housing is certainly not “fixed.”
- A key SBC industry value proposition is to sell a value-added product by providing unique engineering and supply-chain management solutions to customers.
- SBCA members should have passion for and speak with a united voice in advocating for supplier and supplier association initiatives that positively support the SBC industry.
- According to an SBC One Minute Poll, CMs name finding and retaining good employees as one of their top challenges as business picks up.
- Good workers are all around us and a lot of them are still looking for a job that is worthy of their devotion and work ethic.
- Implementing recruiting strategies in and around your community can produce some of the best results with great, long-term employees.
- SBCA brought concerns over SYP visual grades to the forefront nearly two years ago.
- SPIB conducted testing, without requesting input from SBCA and other interested parties, which resulted in a recommendation to reduce Southern Pine design values by as much as 30 percent. This could have a considerable negative impact on light-frame construction and the U.S. economy.
- The key to solving this issue is communication; SBCA is working with a strong coalition to develop a more reasonable solution.
Floor systems have long been the bread and butter of building material dealers offering pre-cut structural frame components. Wood product manufacturers have offered dealers tools and support for precision end trim (PET) floor framing for several years, and now are expanding their offerings to encompass other parts of the structure. For example, advances in design and fabrication software are enabling dealers and other fabricators to more efficiently produce PET roof components.
Safety tips aren’t hard to find, but putting them into practice depends on strategic thinking about creating a safety culture.
The case summary shown below, from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), rationalizes some homeowner reactions to recent media coverage surrounding [toxic] mold. It is a legitimate fear. It can cause physical harm to sensitive people who are exposed to it. But, the type and amount of harm are uncertain.
Increase your website ranking with search engine optimization (SEO)
Popstar Lady Gaga was once quoted, “I’m just trying to change the world, one sequin at a time.” This idea of incremental change in an attempt to make a great change embodies the work that has been done recently in the development of SBCA’s Digital QC and 3rd Party Digital QA programs.
Taking a fresh approach to your job descriptions is a necessary step toward successful hiring.
- Everyone buying raw materials for structural components or conventional framing applications is purchasing design values and related properties for use in engineering equations to resist loads for a given load path.
- It is not well known that lumber design values are global in nature and not specific to the piece of lumber being used.
- Design values written into the building code become the law, whether they are scientifically correct or not.
- If the law is treated forthrightly as written, professional engineers have great value in the market.
Good truck drivers make good decisions.
By 2016, one out of every three builders anticipate they will be dedicated to green building work on over 90 percent of residential projects, up from 17 percent in 2011.The increase in “green” home building provides an opportunity for component manufacturers to work with builders to arrive at a win-win scenario.
Most component manufacturers understand the need to have a website – it is the 21st century, after all. But is your website working as hard as it can for your company?
Take an “acquirer’s view” of your company to understand its value
A company is acquired for its earnings, but valued for its EBITDA percentage.