January 2019 Advertiser

Page 32

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Component Manufacturing dverti$er

Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the

Adverti$er

January 2019 #11234 Page #32

Is Automation the Right Direction to Take?

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fter recently upgrading to a newer vehicle, I have been amazed at the new safety features. While it’s not self-driving, the features are definitely approaching an autonomous car. The basic functions are things like active cruise control with the “stop&go” function, which independently adjusts the distance to the car in front of you. And then there is the collision and pedestrian warning with city brake activation, which prevents collisions via automatic braking. The steering and lane control assistant, including the traffic jam assistant with integrated Waze software, make my driving much easier. The use of this updated vehicle has made me a better driver, a safer driver, and maybe even a more attentive driver because all my communications are done through the driver console with no need to move a finger to click a key board. Yes, my Honda CRV is definitely worth the few extra bucks. Flash forward to a trip into town driving my 2003 Silverado. I immediately realize I am not in my Honda. It’s twice the weight and size, but the bigger difference is my change in awareness. I have more decisions to make. The vehicle functions much differently. As I begin heading into some traffic, I realize that I am going to have to start braking earlier. In one situation, I ran up onto traffic very quickly. The mechanism that I used to rely on during my previous two million miles of driving is gone. I have to quickly adjust. I guess it’s like the old joke, “manual transmissions are millennial anti-theft devices.” Maybe one day I won’t be able to drive a vehicle that is not autonomous. I may have already lost the ability to use a printed road map thanks to GPS devices. So what does this have to do with the truss industry? Let’s think about the parallels. Today with lasers on our tables and linear saws cutting and marking plate locations, with accuracy that rivals furniture making, we have become dependent on this technology. Some of our crews are unable to cope when these improvements malfunction or are not available. On a recent plant tour, we were critiquing some production when it became apparent that some of the problems we were seeing should have been eliminated with a very basic understanding. In this particular situation, it was a splice that should have been centered over the top chord splice, but because of adjustments and lumber lengths varying from the actual design, the splice was shifted to ¼ of its proper position. The builder, after some discussion, didn’t really understand plate placement. He couldn’t tell if the laser projection system was giving him the correct information. Twelve of his last trusses with 2 x 6 chord splices had to be reworked. A little later in the day at another plant, the automatic puck system was not working. The crew could not, to save their lives, set up a truss without the equipment. Continued next page

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