Testimonial by: Scott Zak, Owner/Partner

My partners DarinTrites, Ben Hosfield and I had the opportunity to purchase AWS, a previously operating wall panel business, in 2013 after a year-long evaluation period. Our background has been mainly real estate and finance. We hired what we thought as an industry expert GM to run the day-to-day operations and jumped into the wall panel business with no looking back. We had the tools, people, working capital and even the sales but it was not working out the way we envisioned. After a few years, we learned that we needed to make drastic changes to make the business work the way we had envisioned it or decide if it was better to close the doors and go back to what we knew best.

First, we decided that wall panels were not enough and that we needed to expand into roof and floor truss manufacturing. However, we had learned from hard knocks that learning from trial and error was too expensive, and relying only on the people within your organization was not enough. Equipment and plate vendors were certainly not providing the need-to-know expert advice we really needed to hear. We needed someone who was willing to tell us when we were making mistakes and to actually challenge us. It was time for expert advice, which is where Todd comes in.

The first thing I can say about his consulting services as it was intense, and it covered far more ground than I ever expected. Lean manufacturing practices, which is what he espouses, cover every aspect of your business, and that is exactly what Todd did for us. He covered every aspect of our business. From admin issues such as communication, employee management, then manufacturing, then design and sales (all aspects of each). It really was a lot of very good information.

Without a doubt, if you plan on buying equipment, building an addition to increase your capacity, or starting from scratch for a new or existing wall and roof truss manufacturing, you have got to get Todd’s unbiased advice. He really does not care which vendor you use, but he does provide you with unbiased advice on what you really can expect from both the equipment and the vendors. What are the best positioning of the equipment and the working area for the material flow that will work best for your particular needs. He also is doing this with an eye on potential future growth so you won’t be caught with unexpected constraints if you are able to expand due to sales growth in the future.

Thanks, Todd!