ST. PAUL, Minnesota — A Minnesota company with a long history in the wood packaging industry found extra success by adding wood products for the home building industry.
Longstanding History and Evolution
Villaume Industries (pronounced like ‘William’ but with a V) is a fourth-generation business that was founded in the 1800s. The company’s first products were boxes supplied to breweries to distribute beer.
It has a varied history in manufacturing various wood products. During World War II, the company produced boxes for shipping military rations and also parts and components for gliders that were used in the Allied D-Day invasion of France. At one point, about 1,500 employees, many of them women, worked in three shifts to meet the demand for glider components. Today, the company has two principal wood product lines: a truss division and a pallet and container division.
Truss Industry Provides Product Diversification
Although its roots are in the wood packaging industry, the company’s entry into the wooden truss industry in the early 1960s has fueled growth. Villaume Industries now has annual revenues in the range of $20-30 million. The truss division generates about two-thirds of revenues, and the pallet division, one-third. Within the truss division, roof trusses account for about 75% of the division’s revenues, and floor trusses, the remainder.
The company’s operations are conducted in seven buildings — about 200,000 square feet under roof — located on 18 acres. The business employs about 150 people, including hourly production personnel and salaried office workers; about 80-85 work in the truss division, 50 in the pallet and container division, and 15-20 in roles that involve both divisions.
Sales of trusses are seasonal as home building is limited to warm months in spring, summer and fall. Because of that, employment in the truss division may fluctuate by 50%, depending on the season. The company also employs 10-20 temporary workers, depending on the season.
Family Leadership, Caring for Its People
Villaume Industries, which hosted a plant tour as part of the Interpal international pallet industry conference last fall, is led by owner and president Nick Linsmayer. Nick, who has been involved in the business for over 40 years, took the helm of the company from his father, Robert, who was married to a Villaume family member and ran it for a number of years.
Nick Linsmayer received several compliments from people touring the company about the employees, who seem to enjoy their work. “It is a family business!” said Linsmayer. “I think people come to work for a family business for a sense of belonging and a company that cares about its people. Not that big companies don’t care, but you’re much more involved.”
“It’s a challenge to keep improving and making sure everybody is moving towards a new and better process.”
The pallet and container division and the truss division are part of the same company but operate separately. The divisions have their own sales personnel, purchase their own raw materials, and conduct their own manufacturing operations. The only areas where they overlap are in such activities as shipping and receiving, information technology, plant maintenance, human resources, and so on.
For building trusses, the company buys lumber mainly from Canada. Lumber for the pallet division is split between America and Canada.
In-depth Look at the Truss Operation
The company’s customers for trusses are building contractors constructing primarily homes and some small or light commercial structures. Ninety-five percent or more of trusses are supplied to contractors for residential construction.
A Villaume Industries designer works with the contractor to determine the specs and design of trusses, and contractors sign off on the plans. Established customers who are knowledgeable about the company’s pricing generally do not ask for an estimate, but estimates are provided to customers who request them. After a purchase order is issued for trusses, the order is put in a queue. Within a couple of weeks of the shipping date, Villaume confirms the order with the contractor and confers on any changes to the design of the home that would impact the design of the trusses.
The company buys Machine Stress Rated lumber to ensure trusses meet engineering specifications. It keeps an inventory of standard material — 2×3 to 2×12. It also buys 2x material in such lengths as 8, 10, 12 feet and up to 20 feet.
The lumber is cut into truss components by one of four specialty saws: web, linear, component, and automated radial arm. The web (two blades) and component (five blades) saws cut both ends of the lumber at the same time. The linear and automated radial arm cuts only one end at a time. The Apollo, automated radial arm, is manufactured by New Zealand-based Spida and distributed by Square 1 Design & Manufacture in Indiana. “The Apollo is extremely easy to use and is completely integrated into our software for cutting components, recuts, and managing waste” said Paul Krier, general manager for Villaume Industries.
The trusses are assembled on a specialized system for the industry that resembles a large metal table. An automated jig system moves pegs into place according to the truss design, and workers manually place the parts onto the table in the appropriate places. An overhead laser system guides the placement of components, metal connector plates and plate orientation. Once all the components and connector plates are in place, a press moves the length of the truss to fasten all the connector plates into place. The company can produce about one truss per minute.
The trusses are moved out outside on conveyors through small openings in the walls. Two 2018 Clark Industries stackers automatically stack the roof trusses to be banded together in bundles. Once banded, forklifts move the bundle to be stacked on other trusses for the orders. Villaume Industries has its own trucks and fleet of specialty trailers to deliver trusses to construction sites, where a bundle of trusses is rolled off as the back end is lowered.
Villaume Industries purchases connector plates — which are similar to the plates used in some pallet recycling operations for repairing and splicing stringers — from MiTek Industries. Plate pricing is based on a menu of additional services that MiTek can provide. In the case of Villaume Industries, its purchase agreement also includes use of MiTek software and having engineered trusses reviewed and approved by a licensed engineer. The MiTek truss design software is an interactive program that provides multidimensional views of the truss that is being designed.
Koskovich, acquired by MiTek, is a key brand of specialty equipment for the company’s truss operations. The plant is equipped with a Koskovich Servo-Omni computer–driven saw that can accommodate up to 500 different set-ups per shift and a Koskovich Miser Wood Processing system with an ultra-efficient cut-off saw. The trusses are assembled on special tables manufactured by Kaisler. The MiTek Wizard system, retrofitted to the tables, automatically aligns the pegs for jigging. An overhead Virtek laser system outlines the location of each component and connector plate, and the plate orientation. The press that fastens the connectors is a MiTek Autoroll.
MiTek Adds Value Beyond Plates
Villaume Industries just recently changed connector plate suppliers to MiTek. Villaume Industries also employs a suite of three MiTek computer software programs for truss design and engineering, tracking jobs, and management of quotes, orders, shipments and invoices.
“We have built just an incredible working relationship with them,” said Krier, even working with MiTek staff to improve features of the software.
Villaume Industries made a significant investment two years ago in the MiTek Wizard system for automatically aligning the jig pegs. It was implemented for two tables initially and two more the following year. (The company also has two tables for assembling smaller trusses; three tables with manual jigs are used for assembling floor trusses.)
In the past, manually moving pegs and setting up the table for a new truss design took 15-30 minutes. “Now, with this automated system, it takes 30 seconds,” said Krier.
Analysis of the Pallets & Container Operations
The pallet division offers hardwood and softwood pallets and skids. It can perform pallet analysis and design using the NWPCA’s Pallet Design System™. Villaume also offers wood packaging to meet ISPM-15 standards for export shipments. The company produces crates and containers with foam liners, saddles and bracing to protect contents in transit as well as multi-level and compartmentalized crates, collapsible crates, and returnable crates and containers. In addition to manufacturing a wide range of custom crates and containers, Villaume Industries manufactures various industrial products, such as cores, reels, end boards, and more.
The production of the pallet division is a “pretty good mix across the board” between pallets and skids and various types of wood crates and containers, said Krier. Most production is custom work.
Other specialty wood remanufacturing equipment includes a high-production Grecon cut-off saw and two Komo CNC routers. The company also has two panel saws to cut plywood, oriented strand board, medium density fiberboard and laminated into shape.
All scrap wood generated by the truss and pallet divisions is sold to one of several companies that recycle it by grinding to produce horse bedding and other products.
It took a long time for the home building industry to recover from the Great Recession, noted Krier, but the downturn is over. “Growth continues to look very, very positive,” he said.
One lingering impact of the downturn, however, is a shortage of skilled trade workers who were forced to exit the industry for other jobs. There is a shortage of framing carpenters, concrete finishers and other tradesmen, according to Krier. To some degree, Villaume Industries was impacted the same way — one reason why it has invested heavily in technology to increase production.
Villaume Industries has seen an increase in multi-family home construction of townhomes or condominiums, which are more affordable as starter homes. “We’re seeing a very significant increase in the amount of multi-family homes going up,” said Krier, particularly among national home builders.
Villaume is set apart from competitors by its integrated approach, from design and sales to manufacturing, delivery, and service, according to Krier. “We have a quality process through the entire system. We have very experienced people in sales, design and operations. We are very capable through the entire system to answer questions, solve problems, resolve issues and leverage all of the different groups internally to be able to deliver a high-quality product on time.”
Krier added, “We have invested significantly in technology in the past year and a half as well, which has really changed and improved our hiring capabilities to be able to meet the challenges that we had in 2018. We’re sitting in a very, very good position going into 2019.”
In addition to its recent investments in technology, Villaume Industries was one of the first to use metal connector plates to assemble trusses, and it was the first to test and use a computer-controlled saw designed for the truss industry in the early 1960s.
“All of our customers are continuing to have very optimistic plans leading into 2019,” said Krier. “Our biggest challenge is: can we take that next step again? Can we grow by another 20% in 2019?”
