Page 32 - HW Oct 2022

frame & truss
What next for
FRAME & TRUSS?
With crazy, just in time-style demand returning to normal and labour an ongoing issue, a recovering frame & truss sector is looking forwards, not back. Steve Bohling looks for the connections...
THIS TIME LAST year, frame & truss was struggling to cope with unprecedented levels of demand.
This year, the industry is seeing something of a return to more “normal” (i.e. historical) levels of demand, even if it’s of a different shape and size.
Talking in late September, Peter Carruthers, the FTMA’s Member Services Manager, confirms: “There are certainly signs that demand has backed off,” he says, adding: “It’s probably come back, at least in some regards, to a more comfortable level.”
Still, FTMA members are reporting “enough work as far as they can reasonably forecast,” says Peter, with most feeling that the pipeline of work has now reduced from highs of six months or more with just a minority saying they only had one- or two- weeks’ work ahead of them.
Adverse weather and labour constraints however also mean that there are yards full of frames and trusses waiting to be delivered to site.
PlaceMakers in Auckland has even had to find extra space
to accommodate these pending deliveries, according to Mark Buckenham, GM Manufacturing, who puts this situation down to the wet weather, rather than builder disorganisation, plus “just a wee bit of toilet paper buying syndrome.”
On top of this, councils are struggling to work through their consent processing.
“It’s just a perfect storm, which we’re hearing all the time, but it really has been,” says Mark.
And all this despite PlaceMakers working to an allocation system, which has nevertheless made its frame & truss operation a lot more manageable.
“So it’s got its flaws and its pitfalls and there’s always pros and cons, but from my point of view, it was the right thing to do.
“And from a plant and a manufacturing point of view, it’s a lot more manageable than just keeping on booking in double the amount of cube we can produce and watch that tail just grow and grow...”
PlaceMakers’ frame & truss was super busy until mid-July. Now, Mark Buckenham describes demand as “lighter” but remains optimistic that the pipeline is still “relatively strong.”
Among the independents, Daniel Caldwell, Director-Owner of VIP Frames & Trusses agrees that business has “certainly quietened down... The media just keep bringing all this negative nonsense to the public, but we are certainly settling down.”
No drama however, he says, “It’s just going back to the norm.”
Suppliers to frame & truss see the market no differently. Tony Castledine, MiTek NZ’s GM Building Product Supply Channel, sees the market as “reasonably positive,” despite the pessimists in the media.
“There’s enough work in the pipeline to carry us right through into mid-2023, even the third quarter,” says Tony.
“There is a whole raft of factors, but they won’t stop us from assuming that it’s going to be relatively buoyant.”
Over at Pryda, NZ Sales Manager Steve White is looking forward to a less volatile market, even if it means a drop back in volume from the last couple of years.
Nothing too severe nor too sudden, he reckons, just “a general softening,” which might be a good thing: “Everyone has got used to seeing not a not an ounce of daylight for months, whereas
at the moment, there’s patches of daylight within the next six months or so.”
“Nowadays there isn’t that extreme backlog of work that’s available and ready to go straight away. So people are having to learn to forecast and reschedule a bit more accurately.”
FORM FACTORS AND A CHANGE OF TACK
At the same time as bonkers demand, there have been ongoing changes to the type of products demanded of the frame & truss sector.
The FTMA’s Peter Carruthers for example talks of several members who have installed lines for MiTek’s Posi-STRUT product for the mid-floor market.
Not a paradigm shift, this sort of thing is however “just a good sign of adaptability and using good technical solutions,” he says. As a result, Tony Castledine and MiTek NZ have been seeing
“a bit of an upsurge” with Posi-STRUT.
Daniel Caldwell and VIP Frames & Trusses for example can
now produce mid-floors in volume using a range of techniques,
30 NZHJ | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022
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