Trends in the Component Industry

The Outside World

Smaller homes – the average square footage going down

It isn’t clear that this will be a lasting trend, but in order to produce housing that is affordable to a larger number of consumers, house designs are getting smaller. This may primarily affect truss spans, as opposed to trusses per setup or complexity of individual truss designs.

Architects transitioning to working in 3d

All of the architectural CAD software is offered in 3D versions. The ability to show potential customers a 3D image of their new home, and make “What if?” modifications on the spot, is becoming a significant sales tool. Architects have been slow to migrate to 3D because they have a huge legacy of existing designs in 2D, and have been reluctant to face the learning curve.

A further incentive will be the introduction of engineering tools built in to the CAD packages; architects are anxious to migrate from guessing or “rule of thumb” methods for spec’ing things like beams. CAD packages will eventually offer optional engineering elements.

Big Builders

Although many big builders are currently in hibernation, when the economy comes back they will again play a major part in home construction. Big builders are increasingly becoming “high tech,” and using sophisticated budgeting and scheduling tools to run their businesses. Component manufacturers that understand and work in harmony with these methods will have a an advantage over those who resist them.

The “Sustainable Building” Concept

“Green” represents a major trend. In the recent past, disjointed and somewhat illogical standards have hurt the movement’s reputation in the construction industry. The illogical aspects will fall away and be replaced by more pragmatic standards. This trend is a “big plus” for component manufacturers, as the inherent efficiency of prefabricated components makes them more attractive than other solutions.

Code Enforcement

As every part of the industry becomes more sophisticated, we will see more regulation and increased insistence on compliance. Stick framing will be challenged and require more engineering justification Lateral design considerations will also be at the forefront of this trend, with more emphasis on wind and seismic designs, creating opportunities for wall panel manufacturers and driving the use of things like shear walls.

Sprinklers requirements are another example of increase regulation. Now required by IBC/IRC, code agencies and builder constituencies are fighting it out, weighing safety vs. affordability. Sprinklers add $1.50 - $3.50/ft depending on which side makes the argument. Very “political.”

Communication with the Supply Chain

Electronic commerce

The will be a continued acceleration towards the use of electronic documents. Quotes, order confirmation, invoices, sealed designs, and so on. Having a good “filing system” for this mass of electronic documents will be essential to being organized and professional.

Building Information Modeling (BIM)

The concept of the BIM will become more popular as builders realize the potential of using a digital model. Advantages include more accurate labor and material estimates, reduced construction errors, facilitation of the selling process, improved communications, etc.

Collaboration

Electronic communication will lead to closer communication and knowledge sharing between the architect, engineer, builder, framer, and component manufacturer. As standards of 3D modeling are established, sharing information about the model in 3D will become the standard in the way PDF now sets the standard for 2D communication. It will be more than pictures – as the model can provide us with more information, we will develop ways to share that information in a way that is beneficial to everyone involved. The challenge will be figure out how best to do this.

Within the Component Manufacturing Industry

Designer Productivity

The spotlight will increasingly be on getting the most throughput from design time. Things that can help include being able to edit directly in 3D, create more ‘framer-friendly’ design (like lining up chases,) being able to load directly from the model, and tools to create more ‘shop-friendly’ designs (like matching webs.)

Production Equipment

New equipment will mostly be “high tech” things that minimum dependence on the dwindling labor supply.

Lean manufacturing

Debate continues about the applicability of “lean” to component manufacturing, but it is a trend. No one can afford to ignorant of its strategies and goals – if for no other reason than to be certain why you would not want to use it.

Offering More Products

Most obvious is supplying the product in place, offering the ability to install the product in the field. Also component manufacturers look as possible supplying stairs, doors, windows, decking, trim and taking the headache away from the contractor.

Business Reporting

Understanding the business in detail using the business management reporting tools is a growing trend. Which table is most productive? Why? Which customer have I had the lowest “hit rate” with? Is my product mix getting more complicated or less? These are all things that can be known, but the information needs to be mined and studied in order to used.

Summing Up – The Overall Trends

·         Sophistication of the entire supply chain

·         The advent of 3D modeling

·         Electronic communications

Fortune Favors the Bold

Listening to my favorite podcasters review the Super Bowl, the guys kept returning to the theme, "Fortune favors the bold." Certainly New Orleans was more bold; first by going for it on fourth and one at the goal line and later by starting the second half with an onside kick.

Apparently the expression goes back a long way; it's been part of recorded history for more than 2200 years. My guess is that goes back a lot farther than that. By "fortune" I think we mean the luck that seems to permeate so much of our lives. And luck does come into play when two very equally matched opponents compete with each other. Both New Orleans and Indianapolis had  top-notch quarterbacks, a host of excellent receivers, good running backs, and opportunistic defenses. When both teams are that good and execute so well the outcome of the game can often come down to a "lucky" break.

As component manufacturers we compete with companies that have many of the same competencies we do. They build a good truss, they take care of customers, they have competent designers. Like a good football team, we can work on every department within our company make it as good as it can be; we’re never done with that process. Still, there may be times that the boldness of our decisions as companies, as departments, and as individuals will make the difference between winning and losing.

By definition, acting boldly requires a certain amount of discomfort. Will it work? What will they say? Doubts can creep in, causing us to keep doing what we've always been doing. Bold action is by no means the same as irresponsible action. Sean Payton, the coach of the New Orleans Saints, did a lot of thinking and preparation prior to taking the risks that he did during the Super Bowl. His study of his own team and the Indianapolis Colts told him that without taking some risks his chance of winning the game were perhaps no more than 50-50.

So what steps should we take? It might mean talking with our customers in a way that we have never done in the past. It may mean revealing more about ourselves, our businesses, and our objectives. Who knows? Perhaps our customers (or at least some of them) will respond in kind. In the current environment, many people are looking for opportunities to work more closely, and share some of their problems.

It may mean attempting to measure designer productivity for the first time. We universally recognize the value in measuring our production totals - and even comparing one production line with another. But when it comes to designers, many of us are reluctant to ‘put numbers’ to their contribution. Evaluating a table by board feet produced alone (without any understanding of the type of work that was done) would be misleading at best. Similarly with designers, using just one yardstick to measure designer productivity could well lead to unintended and undesirable results. A good manager knows the difference between measuring and judging. Measurements are done to help you understand, not be misconstrued as understanding. In highly technical work there are a lot of variables; a manager mixes all of the measurements together with personal observations to come up with the overall evaluation. The fact that there is the potential to misuse measurements is no reason to not measure.

It may mean seeking out an alliance with another component manufacturer, perhaps on the edge of your current delivery area, or perhaps on the other side of the country. It may mean figuring out a way to completely eliminate all paper from your production floor. It might mean challenging yourself to find a way to produce the same amount you currently do - with three less people. How about freshening up the company logo?

Consider acting boldly. Think where the Saints would be without it.

Multiple Designers Working on the Same Job?

One often-heard idea for making design software more efficient is the idea of allowing more than one person to work on a design (a layout) at the same time. The argument goes like this: I have truss people, I have EWP people, and I have panel people. I have each one do a layout, because I don’t have time for them each work on the layout in turn, each doing their own specialty. I have to turn around the (quote/order) quickly. So each person does their own thing.

We don’t want this:

So we do this:

The (quote/order) is done when the last guy gets done with his part. The inefficiency is pretty obvious, the plan needs to be interpreted three times. The layout is drawn three times. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could all collaborate on a single model?

Now it’s time to confess that I’m a skeptic of this idea. Maybe it can be done, and we’ll all be using software that can do this in the future. But I see this problem: Does each person start in a corner, start putting in walls, and we meet in the center? If so, aren’t we all still hovering over our own copy of the blueprint, figuring it out? If not, and one person does the walls, what do the other people do while that is being done?

Now once the walls and planes are in, I can see it being a nice thing to have (say) three people all working on their own areas of the layout. It might be a little distracting to see trusses popping in while you are doing the walls, but on the other hand you would get to see them right away and take them into account when doing your walls. But – here’s a catch. You put in your walls with critical studs where you see the hip girder resting. Five minutes later, you look, and the girder’s not there anymore. The truss guy decided to make it an 8’ setback instead of a 6’ setback. Unless you are communicating, you could have a real problem there (as we do now, doing our own layouts.)

So let’s put the designers in the same room and really collaborate. That makes sense, although more than half of our workspaces are designed to allow us to work in splendid isolation, not as part of a collaborative team. So if we could co-locate (work in the same room on the same thing at the same time) and have collaboration software (which we don’t now) we could probably get through the work in the shortest possible time. Even so, we are still paying three people and we are still requiring three minds get wrapped around the plans.

The alternative?

Train people to do the whole thing. Let’s put it this way, if it takes this one guy three days to do this job and it took the group above two days, then you saved a day, but it cost you twice as much (1 guy times days vs. 3 guys times 2 days.) That’s 100% more design cost. Add to that the fact that when a single designer is involved, there is zero possibility that problems like “Designer A didn’t know that Designer B put a beam in there” will occur. Seems like the better plan to me.