Are You Ready to Ramp It Up?

It was announced last week that seasonally adjusting housing starts for July were 1.4 million, representing a 246 percent increase over last year…

Ah, how we all eagerly await the time when that sentence will be printed in this magazine. The market may not be close to that lofty level now, but one day it will be, and a lot will have to change in your business to compete when it does. The educational sessions at this year’s BCMC hold a great deal of value, not only for successfully navigating today’s tough marketplace, but preparing your business to thrive when housing starts ramp up once more.

BCMC is being held early this year, September 21-23, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Let’s look at what’s in store:

George Hedley: Kick Off Speaker & Presenter

George Hedley will kick off the show, and then share his proven, step-by-step “Business $uccess Blueprint” for building your business to work the way you want it to in a separate session. Entitled, The Business Success Blueprint For Manufacturers & Distributors!, Hedley’s session will share tips on how to run your business like an owner: in control, instead of an over-worked, underpaid, hands-on, do-everything, make-every-decision, stressed-out sales and marketing grunt.

His common-sense approach will help you transform your company into an organized, growing business that delivers bottom-line results while it builds equity, wealth and freedom. During the session, you will learn how to draft his patented “BIZ-Builder Blueprint” and produce consistent results. He will also help you define your vision, mission and priorities as well as set and track goals for sales, marketing, customers, production, overhead, profit and equity.

Hedley will also cover his seven-step formula to create operational systems for everything from production and shipping to sales and marketing. He’ll walk you through the process of creating an action plan to continually improve your business. Every entrepreneur, business owner or manager will benefit from Hedley’s insightful kick-off speech and educational session.

Best Practices for Design Departments

“Companies take on a great deal of risk through their design departments; it’s inherent to the structural component manufacturing business,” explains Bob Dayhoff, Director of Technical Operations for Shelter Systems Limited and one of the panelists for this session. “Our goal is to help everyone identify the risk they are taking on, depending on the information they are providing to a customer, and quantify it relative to the size of their company.”

In the first session, Top Five Management Best Practices, the component manufacturer panelists will discuss: how to identify your scope of work; how to make a more accurate evaluation of a job’s potential risk versus the actual profit; how to train your employees through this lens and communicate with your employees and your customers; and, how to re-evaluate your process for completing construction plans and specifications.

“There are also areas of profitability that companies may not be capitalizing on,” adds Dayhoff. “We’ll give several examples of how our companies and others have changed how we do things to avoid pitfalls and unnecessary liability.”

The second session, Top Five Best Practices to Avoid Liability/Lo$$, will focus on how component design can be improved through the full utilization of design software, which will allows you to capitalize on efficiencies in design and materials. Panelists will discuss the importance of ensuring your designers know the design loads that are both specified and anticipated. Finally, this session will discuss lessons learned in anticipating and addressing your customers’ expectations.

OSHA: Not Just a Four-Letter Word

OSHA appears to be in everyone’s plant and on everyone’s jobsite these days. This two-part educational session will feature presenters from the Indiana OSHA (IOSHA) State Plan office. Tony Kuritz, an IOSHA Industrial Hygienist, will present Preparing for an Inspection, which will explore what OSHA is looking for during an in-plant inspection, and how to prepare for one. “Beyond ensuring they are fostering a culture of safety, there are a few simple steps manufacturers can do to prepare themselves for an OSHA inspection,” explains Kuritz. With new rules on combustible dust, proposed rules hearing protection and possible regulations regarding forklift operation, combined with overall OSHA inspections at historically high levels, this session could not come at a better time.

OSHA also just released new regulations pertaining to residential fall protection. The second session in this series, All About Fall Protection, will cover OSHA’s removal of interim guidelines for fall protection and the impact on residential construction jobsites. John Brunswick, an IOSHA Construction Safety Expert, will explore the fall protection challenges facing framers as they erect roof trusses and explain what OSHA is looking for. In addition, a panel of component manufacturers and SBCA staff will answer questions and review changes to SBCA’s B11 Summary Sheet, Fall Protection & Trusses.

What Is Lean Manufacturing in Today’s Economy?

“No matter how good you are, there is always room for improvement,” says John Herring, panelist and former President of SBCA. “You can’t really know your costs, or your production efficiency, until you measure it.”

Lean manufacturing continues to be a popular buzz word, and for good reason. Every company can benefit from the concepts of lean manufacturing, and this session’s panelists will provide several examples you may ultimately want to employ within your own facility. Coming from companies both large and small, panelists will share their struggles and ultimate successes in identifying and employing various lean manufacturing techniques.

This session will explore industry specific areas, including safety, raw material, manufacturing processes and shipping. “Lean manufacturing is what you want to make of it; you can either go all out, or choose one area you want to improve,” adds Herring. “The real trick will be choosing a place to start and actually taking action once you get home from BCMC.”

Making Informed Decisions About Lumber

In today’s market, component manufacturers need to be smart about lumber. Do you really know what it takes to make informed decisions? Whether you are new to the business, or run your company like an old pro, you are guaranteed to learn a thing or two (or more) from this session. When thinking about supply and demand, you likely wonder what the lumber supply will look like in five to ten years. How will exports to China and Japan affect the domestic market? How are SPF mills dealing with the beetle kill?

Indirectly related to timber supply are questions about grades and quality. What’s the relationship between lumber grades and design values? How are lumber graded pulled? What do the lumber standards say and how does that affect what mills deliver? How do the decisions made by end-users affect this process, if at all?

Presented in cooperation with the MSR Lumber Producers Council, the panelists for this session have more than 100 years of combined experience in the industry as component manufacturers, lumber suppliers and expert consultants. Their insights will give you a unique and informed perspective on all the major issue facing lumber supply in North America and help you make good purchasing decisions over the years to come.

BCMC is first and foremost about making and building connections and relationships throughout the industry. But given the lineup of educational sessions this year, it’s all right if you decide to come to Indianapolis just for all the vital information you can gain by attending these events. You know you want to be at full stride when the housing market returns, and these sessions will help ensure you are. SBC