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Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
Adverti$$er
February 2024 #16295 Page #42
Accommodating Your Catch-as-Catch-Can
C
atching and stacking lumber can make or break productivity at the truss build tables. In an imaginary world where money is irrelevant, a linear Edmond Lim, P.Eng. saw in front of each automated truss jig would be ideal, cutting pieces LimTek Solutions Inc. in order from, let’s say, 60 ft finger-joined lumber, and robots grabbing each piece as it comes out of the saw, assembling the truss. I’m sure we will get there some day soon. In the meantime, for existing truss plants, a fully loaded RetroC with SpeedCatch is proven to efficiently feed multiple truss jigs and to speed up truss production. The Enventek RetroC SpeedCatch system is powered by sophisticated software that standardizes the auto-filling of paired lumber carts that will collate cut pieces for the left and right side of the truss. PlantOne screens over the truss build tables show the intuitive color-coded cart map and truss pieces, reducing the need for paper at the tables. SpeedCatch uses more carts than traditional manual catching. In this example, 12 carts spread out over 44 ft reduces truss builder travel distance and time to hunt for pieces. Carts are perpendicular to the tables with cut pieces pointed in the correct direction, so pieces are easily pulled onto the table – no “helicoptering” or lifting of pieces overhead. Enventek SpeedStack is an out-ofthe-box solution for computer-aided lumber stacking when SpeedCatch carts cannot be utilized. SpeedStack left, middle, and right collated carts are shown in front of the truss build table. With limited staging space in front of the build table, carts are placed parallel to the table. Some pieces will have to be lifted overhead to get onto the table, however, because of Continued next page
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