Clear Sailing

The JLC Show is a great opportunity to talk to framers and carpenters. Sometimes I get an entirely new perspective on products that I think I already know something about. For example, I always considered the open web design of floor trusses a big plus for accommodating the trades that will work around the structural components. Then, I talked to one framer who said he thought I-beams are more flexible for the trades because you can “freelance” with them – meaning you can cut wherever you want (more or less) to accommodate your pipes or duct work or whatever else you’re working on. If that’s a general perception, then in my book, that’s two points for I-beams… less expensive and you can “freelance” with them.

Cutting in the Field

I said to this framer, “Well, true, you can cut more or less wherever you want to, but you actually have to do the cutting, don’t you? With floor trusses – there’s no need to cut anything.” His reply: “I don’t have to do the cutting – it’s all those other trades that have to worry about that.” At that point I considered how significant the opinions of electricians or plumbers was in the decision of what kind of floor system to use. Not very, I thought. Well, what might make floor trusses “better?”

A Proposal

What would happen if every time anyone went to a job site using floor trusses they were able to see right through the entire system because all the webs were aligned? Not just some floor truss jobs, but EVERY job. What if using floor trusses meant “every web (possible) is aligned throughout the floor system – always.” What if the product came to be defined not just an “open web product,” but defined as always being an entire system designed to promote the freest access possible, with no cutting? If trusses are going to be considered a “premium” product anyway (price-wise), why not take the trouble to really differentiate the product – emphasizing what that product does best? If every time a builder ordered a floor truss job, he could be assured that he could walk the site after installation and look right through the floor system and see everything aligned, do you think that might influence him to order them more often? Once the trades came to understand that floor trusses meant “clear sailing,” do you think they might be willing to bid their work at lower cost than on a job where they knew they would have to cut holes through dozens of I-beams?

You Could Go it Alone, Too

Although I like the idea of the truss manufacturers of a given area getting together and agreeing to “all pitch in” and make this proposal a reality, you could ‘go it alone’ for now and offer a floor truss system that is “Certified ‘Clear Sailing’” – certifying to the consumer that your floor truss job has all the webs aligned as much as possible. Although this could be a differentiator, I think the greater value would be the ‘collective’ promotion of the product itself when everyone gets on board.

Although today there is a considerable amount of design work needed to create a “clear sailing” floor system, it needn’t always be this way. The past ten years has seen $100’s of thousands of dollars invested in software tools to automate wall panel design – blocking, stud alignment, customization of junctions, etc. Given enough interest on the part of component manufacturers, tools to automate ‘clear sailing’ floor systems could be the next ‘big thing.’

It's Just About Everywhere

When I started out as a radial arm saw operator 30 years ago, I recall being given a hammer to use to nail the “stops” to my wood bench when I was cutting several pieces of the same length. It wasn’t anything special, just your typical hardware store hammer, and it was all I needed. However, it didn’t take too long to notice that all the guys who worked the tables, the guys who built trusses for a living, used another kind of hammer. Thus began my fascination with the Estwing.

A Family Business

Estwing was founded in 1923 by Ernest Estwing, a Swedish immigrant. He patented the one-piece design that was much safer than other hammers on the market. The business started slowly because Estwing’s hammers were twice as expensive ($2) as other hammers. An ad placed in Carpenter Magazine in 1925 received an encouraging response, prompting Estwing to begin his first factory. Estwing is still largely a family business based in Rockford, Illinois.

The Preferred Hammer of the Truss Builder

Specifically, I’m referring to a product that the Estwing company calls a Framing Hammer, which is a subset of their Nailing Hammer product line. I’ve been looking through the photos I have of guys building trusses and I haven’t found any (yet) that don’t show the builder wielding an Estwing.

But Which One?

For the truss builder ready to move up to the truss builder’s hammer of choice, the problem is, “Which one?” The Nailing Hammer comes in 20, 22, 24, 28, and 30 oz. weights. It also comes in 13.5” and 16” lengths, and “milled” (waffle) or smooth face. Although the 13.5” works fine, I think more “pro” truss builders use the 16”, and no doubt, if you can handle it, the 16” can generate more “head speed.” Weight is subjective, like the weight of the bat you use for hitting a baseball. It’s whatever feels right for you. And I would always choose the waffle face – it just seems to me that it “grabs” the plate better when I am striking it, although admittedly I have no evidence to back that up!

What’s the appeal?

Why would one model outsell all the others for building trusses? Almost certainly it is the lightweight, one-piece design, allowing for higher head speed, and the ‘shock and vibration-reducing’ grip. This characteristic “blue grip” has been around a long time, and was improved significantly in 2001.

Until I visited the web site I was unaware of the Hammertooth™ model, which looks like an excellent tool to use if you are building wall panels.

Safety

The Estwing web site emphasizes the importance of eye protection, citing OSHA regulation 29 CFR 1910.133 that requires the use of eye protection not only for workers using striking tools, but for workers in the immediate working area. There is a warning to never strike two heads together, and the site encourages discarding hammers with damaged heads, claws, or handles.

Seven Forms of Waste

In Component Talk #24 when discussing lean manufacturing, I said, “No one can afford to ignorant of its strategies and goals.” One of those strategies is the elimination of waste and the first step in that process is to identify what waste is. In putting this article together, I am quoting heavily from Lean for Dummies by Natalie Sayer and Bruce Williams, and excellent introduction to Lean.

Waste in lean manufacturing means wasted effort, wasted resources, and activities that add no value to the end user. Waste is both inevitable – it cannot be completely eliminated, and reducible – we can always improve. And so, on to the list:

Transport

The idea here is that any transportation of materials between “transformational operations” is a waste. Every time you move something it presents an opportunity for damage or injury, to say nothing of the time the transportation took. Poor layouts and disorganization are a frequent cause of transport waste. Conveyance mechanisms take up floor space, and can lead to inventory accumulation. If you’ve ever seen television program on how computer chips are made, you know that the reason that today’s chips are so much more efficient than yesterday’s is the fact that the new chips have reduced the space that the information must move through to almost nothing. When you make billions of production cycles per second, that adds up quickly. It’s no different on a component production floor.

Waiting

Any time a production person is waiting, it is a waste of that resource. Waiting most frequently comes from shortages, unbalanced work loads, need for instruction, or by design (such as watching a machine complete its cycle.) If you see a production person waiting around, ask yourself, “Which one of the reasons listed above is causing them to wait?” and address it. In some cases workers wait because they expect (or know) that whatever they are waiting for will come to them – even though they could simply go get it much faster. They ‘wait for it’ out of habit, and with full knowledge that eventually it will come to them.

Overproduction

Producing more than the customer needs is a waste and causes other wastes – inventory costs, manpower and conveyance cost to deal with the excess product, and consumption of raw materials.

Defect

In keeping with the all-too-obvious idea that we want to ‘do it right the first time,’ any process, product or service that fails to meet specifications is waste. I’ve seen the time taken to fix one missing plate on a truss shut down not just one line, but two (if they share a conveyor) equal to the time that it normally take to build three trusses. That’s a lot of waste, and missing plates are only one kind of defect. How many different types of defects do your products have? Which costs the company the most wasted time and resources? What are your mitigation strategies?

Inventory

Inventory anywhere is non-value-added to the consumer. It not only ties up capital, but it runs the risk of damage, obsolescence, spoilage, and reduced quality. Inventory takes up floor space and other resources to manage and track it. Keeping large inventories may be covering up other issues, such as equipment reliability or poor work practices.

Motion

Any movement of a person’s body that does not add value to the process is a waste. Examples are walking, bending, lifting twisting and reaching. Tacking a plate in place on a truss adds value, but turning around and having to reach to get the plate does not. Motion of the product can also be waste, such as building the truss flat, lifting it into the vertical position to stack or band, and lowering it back to flat for shipping.

Extra Processing

Any process that does not add value to the product is waste. In component manufacturing, this is frequently caused by inadequate technology, such as when we have to re-do an operation (like a finish press.) And given that we do so many things to add value to the products we sell, why not take the time to verify that those activities are indeed valuable? By talking to customers we can make sure that what we are doing is really adding value and/or making sure that the customer understands how to get the maximum value from the things we are doing.