The NGA Glass Conference: Milwaukee kicked off on Aug. 6 with a trio of high-performance case studies from the host city. The session featured presentations on the historic restoration of a glass-enclosed staircase at the Milwaukee County War Memorial, featuring vacuum insulating glass; the high-performance curtain wall façade of the Northwestern Mutual Tower; and two mass timber projects (the tallest in the world), Ascent and The Edison.
An interesting week in the glass industry combined with a rough week on the markets has given off a gloomy feel. First up, earlier in the week, as in what would be considered a surprising move, a price increase on glass was dropped from the primaries. Obviously, some parts of the country are encountering softer conditions and so seeing this threw many for a loop. The timing, indeed, was unexpected. Then we had the market meltdowns at the end of the week, and those two combined brought a little more skittishness in our industry right now.
The latest From the Fabricator podcast is now up and ready for you to check out. Real interesting trio this time out with lots of lessons and insights. I kick it off with long-time industry player John Leonard of FHC. John joined me at the last minute, and it was a good run through the railing space, along with a key takeaway of “listen” – which really resonated with me. Then I went “peopling” with Priscilla “PK” Koeckerwitz of Brin Glass.
I want to explore areas in glass fabrication where other automation can be effective. These include Enterprise Resource Planning systems, cutting optimization, quality control and material handling. By automating these solutions, companies can retain more people. Automated solutions for these processes allow companies to improve efficiency and keep employees by moving them to other processes that require more manual input, all while maximizing efficiency.
It's critical for employees to understand best practices for fall prevention. This introduction goes over best practices in training employees and implementing fall protection safety measures.
In my last Fired Up blog, I focused on the first rule in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Seven Tools for Life.” But the Governator packs so much good advice in these rules, it is almost impossible to stop with just one.