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Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
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January 2026 #18318 Page #62
The OODA Loop and the New Reality of the Truss and Wall Panel Industry Todd Drummond
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he OODA Loop, developed by U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd, stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. While often discussed as a tactical framework, its real value lies at the organizational level. The OODA Loop describes how companies perceive reality, interpret information, make decisions, and execute under pressure. Few industries need this discipline more today than roof truss and wall panel component manufacturing (CM). The market is no longer slow or predictable, and it is no longer forgiving of flawed assumptions. Conditions change faster, customer expectations continue to rise, and capital decisions now carry consequences that compound over decades rather than years. In this environment, competitive advantage increasingly comes down to decision quality.
A Market That No Longer Tolerates Drift For decades, construction—and by extension CM—operated in relatively stable local markets. Relationships mattered, and inefficiencies were often tolerated because the environment allowed them to persist. That environment no longer exists. Today’s market is shaped by consolidation, private equity ownership, regional and national builders, labor volatility, compressed schedules, and rising expectations. At the same time, commodification is accelerating as differentiation erodes, placing sustained pressure on margins. CM operators are now forced into shorter decision cycles, whether they are prepared or not. This shift has also pulled LBM suppliers deeper into CM. Many are entering manufacturing with strong balance sheets and operational confidence, but often with a distribution-oriented mindset. Tools and assumptions that work well in retail and supply chains do not always translate cleanly into production environments.
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