Business Logistics

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.

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.

60 Years of Cascade

A man, a family and a community.

Bringing Stability Back into Our Truss Plants

  • The challenges of turnover leave some CMs hesitant about justifying the costs of training programs, such as SBCA’s TTT.
  • It’s worth implementing new strategies for retaining employees, such as reconsidering previous policies that may be hurting your company under current conditions. An example includes careful consideration when an employee makes a special request before automatically saying “no.” 
  • SBCA President Scott Ward calls on CMs to share their thoughts on employee retention; send suggestions to Emily Patterson. 

Running Ragged? Look to SBCA

  • Everyone’s looking for good people right now, and SBCA’s WFD website connects CMs with job candidates; CMs can help this effort by posting openings and viewing resumés.
  • SBCA’s online training programs show new hires how our industry can become a career, and gives them the skills to quickly integrate and be productive at the plant.
  • BCMC and BCMC Build are the perfect ways to recharge and help us build an industry community where new ideas, strategies and friendships can converge.

Hitting the Hill: Sharing with Congress Our Industry's Perspective

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.”

Navigating Obamacare: Charting a Course that is Best for You

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), more commonly referred to as “Obamacare,” first sailed through the treacherous waters known as the U.S. Congress in March 2010. In July 2012, strong waves and adversarial winds threatened to scuttle its hull on the rocks of the U.S. Supreme Court. Somehow, though many are still left wondering how, it coursed through those rocks with nary a scratch. In one final test, a mutiny against this ship’s captain was proposed last November, but, in the end, it was turned aside.

Shiver Me Timbers! Fire, Boats & Really Big Trusses

This is the story of how a fire, a yacht race and America’s third wealthiest citizen proved a boon for one Texas-based structural component manufacturer.

A Not So Tall Tale

The story of how one Michigan truss plant is on track to realizing that elusive happily ever after.

Cycle Time for Success

  • Determining production cycle time, the amount of time required to process an order from start to finish, is key to meeting customer needs.
  • The old paradigm suggested that similar jobs be manufactured at the same time; the new paradigm focuses on meeting customer needs with a “just in time” mentality as efficiently as possible.
  • Is an urgent request viewed as a pain-in-the-neck rush job or an opportunity to exceed expectations and have a customer for life?