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Component Manufacturing dverti$ dverti $ er
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
Adverti$$er
November 2024 #16304 Page #52
An “A-Ha Moment” at BCMC 2024
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Edmond Lim, P.Eng. LimTek Solutions Inc.
s teased in last month’s article, “F1 Pit Stop Each Truss,” the Enventek Collated Plate Dispenser was unveiled at BCMC 2024 Milwaukee. To many truss fabricators, it was an “A-Ha moment” to see a machine in action that solved a truss fabrication bottleneck that many did not even realize they had!
W e ’ v e been assembling trusses for decades and many SKUs of truss plates are being gathered and distributed to truss build tables without any real consequence. From over 100 different sizes and grades of truss plates available, most truss plants “80/20” their inventory to about 32 to 48 truss plate SKUs. The time and effort of getting truss plates to the
truss build tables has just been a cost of doing business. In many instances, the truss builders would fetch their own truss plates, until of course table automation accentuated how truss plates could be a bottleneck on truss build times. As such, the majority of truss plants now attempt to keep up with their tables by having dedicated plate pickers pre-pick the plates for the tables so that the truss builders can concentrate on building trusses. Even so, most of the pre-picking has been “bulk plate picking,” which leaves a lot of room for improvement as the truss builders still have to huddle and pick through the pre-picked bulk plates. Too bad the plate picker has not been able to organize the truss plates in order of distribution around the truss…
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