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Component Manufacturing dverti$ dverti $ er
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
Adverti$$er
July 2022 #14276 Page #132
The Last Word on The Robotics Transition Joe Kannapell, P.E.
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obotics showed new promise for many CMs on May 17, ironically, by borrowing from the past 60 years of truss machinery. Attendees at SBCA’s Open Quarterly Meeting in Williamsburg, VA saw video of robots feeding truss parts into auto-jigging at the plant of their largest competitor, Builders FirstSource. And they heard BFS leaders Greg Griggs and Scott Schulte embrace robotics, and their supplier, Chad Svedin of House of Design LLC (HoD), state in an understated tone that, “We don’t know trusses, but we know robotics.” In fact, HoD, like its peers, has learned a lot about trusses, and are taking much of our existing technology to the next level. These developments have been a long time in coming, but CMs’ interest seemed to peak in 2008, at the height of the housing boom. Both TCT Automation, based in Florida, and Randek, based in Sweden, introduced highly automated roof truss systems. The Randek Auto-Eye first appeared on these pages in an October 2014 ad highlighting its most advanced feature, its automated plating, aided by vision technology that can correct for lumber imperfections. Despite the potential of these systems, both were hindered by the great recession, and neither was in use in the U.S. until 2017, when Barry Dixon of True House installed the Randek in Crescent City, Florida. By then, TCT had turned its main attention to advancing its linear saw.
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