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Component Manufacturing dverti$ dverti $ er
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
Adverti$$er
October 2022 #14279 Page #50
The Most Automated, Most Toured Truss Plant n my humble opinion, since 2014, United Truss of Innisfil, Ontario, Canada has unofficially held the titles of “The most automated truss plant” in North America and “The most visited truss plant in North America.” United Truss was the un-named but featured truss plant in my May 2022 article, “Debunking the ‘Automation Takes Too Much Space’ Myth.”
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Edmond Lim, P.Eng. LimTek Solutions Inc.
United Truss has been visited by a “Who’s Who” of the US truss industry, including ProBuild, Builders FirstSource, 84 Lumber, USLBM, S.R. Sloan, Ridgway Roof Truss and Toll Integrated Systems, just to drop a few names that made the trip to United to see how they Feed the Beast! In Canada, it is easier to ask who has not yet visited United Truss. As mentioned in last month’s article, “Incremental CapEx ROI and Plant Tours," United Truss is a textbook study just like R&K. United Truss started with a fully loaded RetroC automatically fed lumber from a Lumber PickLine to auto-fill carts which funded future investments and optimized investments in table automation. United Truss will tell you that they could not have achieved their goals if they did not invest in material handling and sawing first — yes, they knew how they were going to Feed the Beast!
United Truss incorporates traditional truss plant automation, such as automated saws to cut the lumber, auto jigging to set up the truss perimeters, and overhead lasers to help position the truss plates. Traditional automation is not why people come to visit United Truss. People come to see the efficiency and simplicity of United Truss cutting lumber for multiple jigs with just one human picking lumber and one human saw operator with auto-fill lumber carts — which is all part of their
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