Continually evolving to keep up with industry changes, the WDMA in its own words “promotes, protects, and advances the use of high-performance, high-quality windows, doors, and skylights through advocacy, education, standards, and certification.” Based in Washington, D.C., the Association’s team of lobbyists and technical experts champion issues affecting its members to ensure this important sector continues not only to grow but to thrive.

A history of service
Originally founded in 1927 as the National Door Manufacturers Association (NDMA), the Association has undergone several name changes over the decades. Promoting wood windows and doors, the association changed its name in 1949 to the National Woodwork Manufacturers Association (NWMA).

From its early days, the Association devised and developed programs, including the Seal of Approval Program (which became the WDMA Hallmark Certification Program). In 1958, the Association took over the management of U.S. Commercial Standards for ponderosa pine doors, which over time led to WDMA Industry Standards for these wood products.

In its 97 years, the Association spearheaded fire testing of doors, took a firm position on standards and certification development, successfully took on several unions along the way, and became the sole industry association with a presence in Washington, D.C.

“The Association has been evolving through its entire history, starting with a heavy focus on wood windows and doors,” says WDMA’s President and CEO, Michael O’Brien, CAE. With evolving technology and the arrival of new materials, the Association expanded to include windows, doors, and skylights made of other material types, such as vinyl, fiberglass, and composites.

Before coming on board in 2009, O’Brien took on roles with the National Lumber & Building Material Dealers Association (NLBMDA), as President and CEO, as COO at the Manufactured Housing Institute, and at the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), where he served as Assistant Vice President of State and Local Affiliate Services. A career spent in housing and building industry associations made O’Brien a natural fit for the WDMA.

Key initiatives
To this day, the Window & Door Manufacturers Association’s legacy of service continues. The WDMA’s 2023 National Policy Agenda (available at https://www.wdma.com/assets/docs/Policy_Agenda/2023Agenda.pdf) “identifies priorities and offers solutions that will strengthen the U.S. economy, improve the national supply chain, address nationwide labor shortages, and bolster America’s housing industry.”

Enumerated in the Agenda are many recent efforts of the Association, including working with Congress and the Biden-Harris Administration on policies impacting energy, workforce development, affordable housing, trade policy, safety, supply chains, and economic challenges facing members.

One key initiative is the important role that windows, doors, and skylights play in energy conservation; in fact, an entire section within the Agenda is dedicated to energy conservation.

“We try to encourage and support efforts or incentives for the purchase of energy-efficient windows, doors, and skylights to help bring down the cost of window and door replacement for consumers across the country,” says O’Brien.

He adds that there are about a billion single-pane windows still in existence in the United States. Old and inefficient, these single-pane windows allow heat and cold to be lost, making properties much more costly to maintain.

Although there is considerable regulation surrounding new windows, doors, and skylights, many people don’t realize that replacing the existing inventory of single-pane windows with energy-efficient products will save consumers millions—if not billions—of dollars in energy savings.

“Buildings themselves are the largest consumer of energy in the world,” says O’Brien, “and when we talk about energy policy, we don’t talk enough about energy efficiency.” Replacing outdated and inefficient windows, doors, and skylights with new products not only saves money, but also reduces our collective carbon footprint and adds value.

While window replacement benefits the environment, the WDMA acknowledges it isn’t cheap, and is advocating for options for buyers. The Association has been disappointed with the federal government’s unwillingness to incentivize consumers through a robust tax credit to help consumers replace windows, doors, and skylights. “One of the biggest things a government can do is help spur that on,” says O’Brien. The WDMA is constantly faced with code changes and policy proposals that increase the cost of producing energy-efficient windows, doors, and skylights, but the government is doing little to benefit consumers willing to make the effort to replace old, inefficient products.

While O’Brien says there have been some government efforts, they must meet specific criteria, including Energy Star Most Efficient 2023. This designation governs different window types, including vertical slider (single- and double-hung), casement style (awning, projected hopper, tilt-and-turn, etc.), sliding glass (patio) doors, skylights and tubular daylighting devices (TDDs), and others. Buyers can claim 30 percent of the project cost, up to $600 maximum—hardly enough to prompt homeowners to redo all their windows with high-efficiency versions. Energy Star-qualified exterior doors are eligible for a $250 tax credit.

Another of the main functions of the Window & Door Manufacturers Association is, and always has been, product certification for windows and doors. This includes WDMA Hallmark Certification and serving as an inspection agency for the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) for energy efficiency.

The Hallmark program certifies windows for air, water, and structural performance for different industry standards, with products tested for energy efficiency by a third-party administrator. “That provides an added layer of confidence for consumers—including builders, architects, remodelers, and the average consumer—that the windows and doors they are purchasing meet certain standards and criteria, and to ensure overall total product performance,” says O’Brien.

Advocating for members
Alongside quality standards, energy efficiency, and affordability, the WDMA is active on many other issues. These include working with the IRS regarding reporting (on tax returns) an individual identification number of windows and doors that qualify for tax credits. As some windows, doors, and skylights come from big box sellers and others are made to order by smaller manufacturers, this presents a complex issue. “Unlike a furnace, we don’t have serial numbers,” O’Brien explains. The Association is still working on this, trying to come up with workable solutions that don’t burden the industry or the consumer.

Other issues facing the WDMA and its members include the latest version of Energy Star, state regulations surrounding chemicals, and packaging used to ship products.

Introduced last October, Energy Star Version 7.0 replaces the previous version regarding residential windows, doors, and skylights, and is the most stringent to date. The Association is working to develop a system for manufacturers to report their data, in an aggregated format, concerning Energy Star production to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as required by the agency.

The Association is also concerned about state regulation surrounding the elimination of Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances (PFAS). These are used in the manufacture of fluoropolymer coatings, which resist oil, grease, heat, water, and stains. Although found in the adhesive used in windows and doors, the WDMA’s position is that PFAS are also contained in many other everyday products, from heat-resistant non-stick cooking surfaces to clothing, furniture, electrical wiring, and even food packaging.

Recently, Maine and Minnesota passed legislation looking to phase out the use of PFAS over alleged harmful health effects, and the Association believes this will become a big issue for many industries. “It will impact a lot of products and how they are used,” says O’Brien. “People don’t realize it’s contained in a lot of products, not just things you ingest or wear.”

Another issue at the state level is to reduce non-recyclable plastic packaging. Windows and doors are shipped with a lot of plastic packaging because they are delicate items. The WDMA is investigating how it fits into that debate, and is working to educate policymakers about the challenges of completely eliminating plastic in shipping. This issue will be on the Association’s agenda heading into 2024 along with others, such as the shortage of workers.

Like construction and most other manufacturing sectors, window, door, and skylight manufacturers are hard-pressed to navigate the current staff situation. It continues to trouble the industry, especially at the entry level for production workers. The WDMA’s challenge has been how to reach Gen Z-ers and younger Millennials and communicate the industry’s many career opportunities and benefits.

The WDMA has a separate website, Open Up To Performance (https://www.openuptoperformance.com/), which covers a range of topics while promoting high-performance products to builders, architects, and remodelers, from newcomers to seasoned industry professionals.

To keep members informed of changes and developments in the industry, the WDMA has a biweekly electronic newsletter, regular webinar updates, and three annual conferences every year, plus an information-packed website. “What’s most effective for us is getting existing members to identify and refer other companies that would benefit from membership,” says O’Brien. “It’s a type of one-on-one recruitment effort that we do.”

As mentioned, the Association’s primary membership is window, door, and skylight manufacturers, but there is also the supplier membership category, which includes suppliers of services. “Those suppliers are typically identified by primary members as candidates for membership,” O’Brien adds.

A clear view
As the WDMA approaches its hundredth anniversary, the future of the Association remains bright.

“It might not be obvious to many, but the window and door industry is very innovative and technologically advanced, and I’m excited to see where it goes in terms of meeting consumer demand, how we’re going to evolve, the products that are going to be produced, and how much of a dent we can make in that reduction of the old inventory of single-pane windows,” notes O’Brien.

“We have a lot of innovative companies in this industry constantly coming up with new products and solutions both to the challenges facing existing homeowners and the demands of builders and architects,” he says. “I expect that by our centennial in 2027, there will be a host of different options available, both for the high-tech home automation that many people are seeking and for affordable products to help meet the energy-efficiency demands that need to be addressed.”

The post A Window Into the Industry<p class="company">Window & Door Manufacturers Association</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

To find out what the buzz is all about, we spoke with Philippe Lavoie, General Manager, who’s been with Decko Doors since 2007, and who told us about the company’s somewhat humble beginnings in the ’90s.

Decko was founded in 1992 in Saint-Nazaire, Lac St-Jean. Over the next ten years, the company steadily grew and opened an assembly plan in Terrebonne in 2001.

The acquisition of Decko by Soniplastics in 2005 allowed to merge into a structure that offers great standardized product with cutting edge market innovations. The Terrebonne plant expended in 2006 and 2008 and then moved to a new location in 2011. The plant recently expanded in 2020 and now boasts over 100,000 square feet, where 90 employees work in a bright, clean, modern environment, where doors are manufactured on demand and health and safety are priorities.

Entry of Soniplastics
“We received a lot of research and development support at the time of the acquisition, which allowed us to re-design and standardize the doors,” Lavoie says. The result was to coordinate these products with the window extrusion manufactured by Soniplastics.

The acquisition was mutually beneficial because it meant that Soniplastics now had a complete product lineup, while Decko Doors, which retained its name, benefitted by gaining access to new markets.

“We had a huge growth in sales,” Lavoie says. “The acquisition helped Decko Doors gain new customers since Soniplastics had a lot of customers we didn’t have. Window manufacturers who purchased window extrusion systems and entry door components from Soniplastics could add patio doors, in order to complete our product line offering.”

The most recent development at the Decko Doors manufacturing facility is the introduction of automation and robotics, with a variety of applications, beginning with an automated frame assembling machine. “In addition, we have an automatic insulating glass line to build the insulated glass units (IGUs) and we just acquired another automated glazing assembling line,” Lavoie tells us. The company’s uptake of automation is scheduled to continue for the next five years.

Patio door classics
Decko Doors currently produces three product lines, which meet Energy Star and National Fenestration Rating Council standards and are tested for wind and water resistance, both in the laboratory at the Soniplastics facility and by a third-party laboratory.

The company’s Classic C and Legend S both feature a white PVC sliding door, a solid wood frame, and insulated glass panels, differing only in their design, with the Classic C more contemporary and the Legend S more colonial. The third line is the Hybrid, where the sliding patio door combines the qualities of aluminum and PVC and features a durable, elegant, contemporary design. The door frames come in standard sizes of 9, 10, or 12 feet high and 5, 6, 7, or 8 feet wide, but can be customized to order, while the systems can contain 2, 3, or 4 panels, depending on the overall width.

The Ecopure, an all-vinyl patio door that will have the same standard sizes and insulated glass units, is presently in development and undergoing structural testing.

The made-to-order doors feature a wide range of customized options. They include double energy glass, triple clear or energy glass, integrated blinds, interior PVC covering, aluminum frame extension and sills, PVC brick mould, choice of lock (key lock, security bar, multipoint lock, or kick lock), choice of exterior and interior colour, grills, terrace panels, false bars, side panels, and transoms.

With the environment in mind
Both Decko Doors and sister company Soniplastics are concerned about their environmental impact and carbon footprint. “We use water-based paint on the frames as opposed to oil-based, and we offer triple-glazed windows as an option, which is currently beyond Energy Star’s requirement of double glazing,” Lavoie says.

“We recycle all the vinyl and send it back to Soniplastics, which has the equipment needed to do the regrind and extrusion. We do the same with cardboard and leftover aluminum and steel reinforcement. Nothing gets wasted or goes to the landfill.”

Happy employees, good products
We’ve all heard about not buying a Monday car, built by workers with the post-weekend grumps. Such is definitely not the case at Decko Doors, says Lavoie.

“Some of our highly skilled production workers have been here for more than 10 years and they enjoy being here,” he says. “There’s a lunch counter, recreational facilities, and occasional special events, but more importantly, I think everyone respects each other, works well together, and there’s great communication between the departments. We have a new production manager who came on board three years ago, and he’s involving people a lot more in creating ideas to improve the process—and listening to them,” Lavoie shares.

“What I like most about working here is the unmatched customer service we offer,” he continues. “We’re easy to work with and easy to reach. Everyone is focused on pleasing our customers, whether working with them to develop a custom product, manufacturing and delivering it promptly, or following up with after-sales service.”

The post Creating Doors to the Future<p class="company">Decko Doors</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

The legacy of America’s first screen company goes back to the 1940s when JT Walker founded the Clearwater Flying Company of Florida. Initially, the business focused on leasing and selling airplanes and providing flying lessons to civilians and veterans following World War II. By 1947, Walker transformed the company into Metal Industries Inc., utilizing a portion of one of its airplane hangars to build window screens with aluminum frames.

“What JT Walker and his partners began in Florida has grown tremendously over the past 75 years,” says Steve Middleton, Vice President of Sales – West. RiteScreen has seven strategically located plants throughout the United States, and Middleton explains that, “Maintaining our values of honesty, integrity, safety, customer focus, accountability, continuous improvement, and teamwork helped make us what we are today.”

With decades of experience providing industry-leading window and door screen products, RiteScreen has the skills and technology to provide best-in-class experiences for all its customers. The company offers the biggest product catalog in the business at almost 100 pages, showcasing standard and customized window and patio door screen solutions along with components and information on custom color capabilities, outsourcing, packaging options, dimensions, and more.

“Our catalog is updated multiple times throughout the year, providing a standing resource for our customers to rely upon when needed,” says Mark Gwozdz, Vice President of Sales – East. Along with an impressive catalog, RiteScreen recently hired a new Digital Marketing Director, further promoting the company and its resources online for window and door manufacturers.

As an OEM in the screen industry, RiteScreen offers window companies a wide variety of options in both packaging and shipping. In fact, RiteScreen tailors its manufacturing processes to each individual window company, providing highly specific, comprehensive screen solutions normally associated with small, boutique dealers. RiteScreen is even set up to accommodate the most frequent ways in which screens are consumed by window manufacturers: sequenced options for lean efficiency, house-packaged options for manufacturer ease, and even stock bundle options for streamlined, efficient screen solutions.

By providing high-quality screens at a more efficient and affordable rate, RiteScreen enables manufacturers to redeploy people, space, and capital toward more profitable endeavors: making more windows, doors, and skylights. “Simply put, our number one advantage is peace of mind,” says Gwozdz. “At RiteScreen, we are screening experts; it’s in our name. It’s our passion. It’s what we do.”

RiteScreen was purchased by Seven Point Equity Partners in 2014 and the company quickly launched its Total Screen Solution presentation, as well as a confidential “make vs. buy” analysis tool. With these tools, the window industry has realized that making screens in-house is never as profitable as outsourcing. The majority of America’s largest and most successful window manufacturers have been outsourcing screens for years—and for good reason. RiteScreen’s Make vs. Buy tool has made small to medium-sized manufacturers realize the benefits and additional profits of outsourcing.

“We always knew we were effective, but it’s exciting to see just how much value we’re actually providing to our customers,” Gwozdz says. “And with the make vs. buy tool, we can definitively show the specific savings we provide to each unique business. In fact, with all the ‘make vs. buy’ analysis we’ve done, we have never found it to be more cost-effective or efficient for a manufacturer to produce screens themselves instead of outsourcing them from RiteScreen!”

As a reliable single-source solution company, RiteScreen makes outsourcing easy, efficient, and highly profitable. By freeing manufacturers from the hassles associated with insourcing screens, they can instead focus energy and resources on their core door and window business. And with a massive selection of screen products and multiple factories, RiteScreen provides roll-formed and extruded screens for virtually every window and door type installed in America. This includes screens for double-hung windows, single-hung windows, casement windows, awning windows, sliding windows, hopper windows, tilt-turn windows, single slide patio doors, swinging doors, and now even multi-panel sliding ‘big doors.’

Much has changed since RiteScreen was founded, including the materials and production methods used in manufacturing. And now, even the typical door and window sizes are changing! While windows and doors are still designed for functionality, it’s undeniable that these products are becoming larger and more complex than ever. This is particularly the case along the West Coast in California, where property owners want massive doors to enjoy their spectacular ocean or mountain views.

Thanks to improvements in technology, energy efficiency, operations, and hardware, RiteScreen is seeing more requests for bigger screens, multiple panels, and even entire walls to accommodate these gigantic doors and create expansive spaces. Fortunately, the company has dedicated considerable effort to developing screens to meet these emerging needs— whether it’s height, width, or how everything fits together—and has created innovative, dynamic products to cover multiple-panel spaces.

In fact, RiteScreen has solutions that support numerous operating configurations, with screen sizes up to 40 feet wide by 12 feet tall. “Recently, we launched a multi-slide patio door screen where you can go out to eight panels wide, 12 feet tall, and 40 feet wide with a screen system that’s attached in panels,” says Middleton. “You have the door panels? Well, now we can replicate them and produce screen panels in the same exact configurations to cover that space. 10 or 15 years ago, we never would have considered such a product. But now, in response to our customers’ evolving needs, we provide the best option in the industry for screening-in that size of door and that size of opening.”

All businesses faced tough times during COVID-19. Still, RiteScreen was able to successfully deliver an impressive 98.7 percent on-time and completion rate to its highly aligned and most committed customers through the pandemic. This remains not only a point of pride, but a clear sign of the company’s management, efficiency, strengths, and customer dedication.

“That was an important time for us, and we are very proud of that,” Middleton reflects. “Plenty of companies talk about maintaining continuity of supply and remaining on time, but in the toughest of times—particularly over that two-to-three-year period—we came through without any decline in quality or lead time. We know those were challenging times for manufacturers across many industries, so we take a great deal of pride in the collective efforts of our entire team.”

Early in the pandemic, RiteScreen made provisions to ensure adequate supplies of aluminum so it could keep its promises to customers. “We didn’t want to be the reason they had to change their lead time or break delivery promises to their customers,” says Middleton. With seven plant locations, RiteScreen came together as a united entity, rather than individual silos. This collaborative spirit proved to be a huge advantage for the company and its loyal clients.

RiteScreen’s team had to react quickly to ensure continuous production throughout the pandemic. Sometimes, lines had to be pulled down with little notice, but by seamlessly moving production from one plant to another, the company filled orders in full and on time. By ensuring sufficient materials and employing the strengths of all its plants, the company continued to honor the close working relationships it has built with its customers.

“We are very proud that we did not change our lead times during that period, and maintained our ability to complete orders.,” says Gwozdz. “It was a lot of hard work, but everybody at RiteScreen committed to keeping those promises. While many manufacturers focused on bringing in new customers during that time, we really prioritized our existing customers. And I think our customers really appreciated the work we did.”

As RiteScreen grows, it continues to introduce exciting, new screen products to the market. One of the most recent is the proprietary SlideRite adapter, which transforms standard 5/16” screen frames to a larger 3/8” or 7/16” screen frame dimension without increasing the base metal frame size. This unique innovation allows manufacturers to use the same screen design in windows with varying screen pocket dimensions, providing cost savings for manufacturers and alleviating headaches for installers.

In recent months, RiteScreen has also started offering manufacturers the option of ordering patio door screens in a shipping tube or box. This allows for the shipment of more doors in a smaller space, generating significant savings on freight costs. Paused during the pandemic, RiteScreen is also finalizing and adapting a new proprietary blue light adhesion technology. This provides manufacturers with an alternative method for securing screen mesh to a screen frame. Ultimately, this new method reduces the manufacturers’ screen acquisition costs by eliminating the labor and materials associated with a traditional screen spline.

As the company’s 80^th anniversary approaches, RiteScreen is continuing to invest in future endeavors, making improvements to its enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, electronic data interchange (EDI) technology, and just-in-time (JIT) delivery processes as it anticipates the demand for outsourced screens to continue to grow.

“RiteScreen’s market penetration is expected to persist with investments in new plants,” shares Middleton. “In Q2, we are set to launch a new ERP system, enhance our functionality, and expand services to our manufacturing customers. Additionally, we are actively pursuing acquisitions of complementary screening products, allowing us to further broaden our product portfolio for window, door, and skylight manufacturers.”

The post Exceeding Expectations<p class="company">The RiteScreen Company</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

After a decade of working with the company, Jenny and her business partner, Byron Gayfer, decided to buy the company outright, with Jenny citing the book Buy Then Build by Walker Deibel as an influence. Almost two years after that fateful decision, the Gayfers are seeing continued success as the business seeks to bring modern approaches into a more traditional industry.

Top 40 Woodworks has three distinct divisions: commercial millwork, national store fixtures, and design-build projects, as they have three interior designers on staff. The company is certified by the Architectural Woodwork Manufacturers Association of Canada (AWMAC). This is a distinction as AWMAC functions as the regulatory body for architectural millwork in Canada, and they uphold the highest industry standards.

How it works is AWMAC certification is requested on a project by the owner when they want to ensure quality millwork standards for their job. Once the project has been completed, AWMAC will conduct an inspection and call out any infractions in accordance to the AWMAC Standards Manual that need be remedied immediately by the millwork company to obtain certification on the project. This builds trust in an industry that self-regulates.

Top 40 values their relationship with AWMAC and respects the association’s oversight to hold the woodworking industry accountable. Top 40 has garnered several AWMAC awards of excellence for achieving the highest standard in quality millwork. “It’s a privilege to belong to and perform AWMAC-certified projects,” Gayfer says.

The millwork industry has seen rapid advancements in equipment and technology in the past decade. There was a time when shop owners believed that if they could hear the machinery working, then the shop was thought to be profitable. Workplace culture wasn’t really considered a “thing”. Today, Top 40 approaches things from a more sophisticated and data-driven approach, embracing systems, advanced equipment, and processes to drive decision-making and inform manufacturing practices.

Top 40’s management believes the strength of a healthy workplace culture together with leveraging data and software is what propels a successful organization. Instead of a top-down type of operation that is prevalent in the millwork industry, Jenny Gayfer considers their approach to be more of a matrix dynamic, pointing out the transparent management, open communication, and collaborative relationships amongst the staff.

Of these newer practices, several stand out as significant in the company’s day-to-day operation. The first is the prevalent use of automated equipment, which has bypassed the more traditional shop equipment like table saws or forklifts in favour of more sophisticated equipment and robotics, such as their material handling system. The shop has also embraced the ideals of lean manufacturing, maximizing productivity while minimizing waste to ensure that its processes are as efficient as possible.

Gayfer touts the software systems used by the company as especially helpful in bringing it into a new age for the industry. One of these systems is its enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, INNERGY, which runs its manufacturing workload, including sales, project management, production, final delivery, and more. The data generated from the Innergy ERP system is what guides the organization to its goals. She highlights the software’s creator, Marc Sanderson, as someone who is changing the millwork industry worldwide with his advanced education platform which focuses on a very upstream approach.

Where INNERGY is a tool for the manufacturing of projects, Top 40 uses another tool from the book Traction by Gino Wickman to run the organization and execute their vision. It is called the entrepreneurial operating system (EOS) and helps define the company’s goals, guide their growth, and stick to the vision company-wide. Again, metrics and data from the EOS inform the management team on the best course ahead.

Strong communication is one of the highest company values at Top40. They have weekly Microsoft Teams calls for the eight departments, monthly Townhalls on the production floor for all staff, as well as quarterly “Alignment Meetings” for roundtable discussions. These offer an opportunity to foster collaboration and strengthen commitment to the company vision.

Teamwork is what propels the organization and is a core ideal for Top 40. “If you don’t have buy-in from your team and unification among the team, you won’t get anywhere fast,” Gayfer says. Contributions from stakeholders also accelerate the attitude and willingness of the group, so the company is conscious to bring all stakeholders into any discussion about change and vision, and this has propelled the pace of change in the organization.

The company is looking to be a leader in more ways than just on the technology front. Speaking specifically on the role of women in the millwork industry, Gayfer says that generally, women tend to be strong communicators, placing value on relationships and collaboration and placing less emphasis on the adversarial tendencies that can crop up within traditionally male-dominated workplaces.

She estimates that in 2021, around 10 percent of the staff of Top 40 was female; today, the count is closer to 30 percent, thanks to the great success the business has had in attracting capable and educated women to its workforce. These new hires have rocketed the company ahead across all departments. Gayfer believes that women have already had a phenomenal impact on the organization and aims to carry this trend into the future.

Indeed, 2023 has been a largely positive year for the company. Gayfer says that interest rates in construction have begun to level off, which means that projects that may have been shelved during the time of climbing rates now have a greater chance of being green-lit. Theoretically, more work should come into the market soon thanks to more stable—or even lower—interest rates.

The level of automation in millwork, generally, has also been an important factor in industry growth, but this kind of progress does come with a very high price tag. The barrier to entry for newer businesses in the industry is much higher than ever before, so there are fewer large millwork shops entering the sector and less work coming out of it. This coincides with the purging effect that COVID-19 had across the entire construction industry, leading to the development of a ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ mentality among those businesses that remain. Any non-viable shops were forced to shut down, while the rest remained strong.

It is a “generally excellent outlook if you’re already in the market,” says Gayfer, and Top 40 staff members already have many reasons to feel good about the future. Into the new year and even into 2025, the company will be continuing to improve its internal processes and software as well as further investigating lean manufacturing practices. Further down the line in 2026 to 2027, she says that the company may investigate big changes for its manufacturing equipment.

The past year saw the company hit $16 million in sales, with $20 million expected in two years and $25 million within the next five years. Jenny and Byron Gayfer are happy that they took a chance in acquiring Top 40 and continuing it under their own terms, with the new management already proving capable and profitable in the millwork industry.

The post Classic Trade, Modern Solutions<p class="company">Top 40 Woodworks</p> appeared first on Construction In Focus.

Engineered Openings, Inc. is the go-to provider to construction design professionals and project owners in search of the ordinary and the extraordinary in custom architectural components like bespoke window frames, architectural doors, and their associated hardware and other products in North Georgia and beyond. Certified as a Woman Owned Business in 2013, the company has a product offering that is as diverse as its team is modern, dynamic, and capable.

The secret to the company’s three decades of success in a highly competitive industry resides in delivering quality on every level. It is also committed to ensuring its people excel in continuous education as it keeps its products and services in tune with changing trends and market transformations.

At home in Alto, Georgia, the company primarily serves commercial enterprises, government departments, churches and other places of faith-based gathering, schools, and health care facilities. As such, the team is well-honed in establishing clients’ exact needs to deliver on the vision efficiently every time. Sisters Deborah (Debbie) Purcell, Chief Executive Officer and President, and Rhonda Purcell, Vice President and Lead Estimator, run a respected legacy company. In 2020, Debbie, a Certified Architectural Hardware Consultant (AHC), received a Fellow Award presented to her by the National Door & Hardware Institute for outstanding service throughout her career.

As safety plays a significant role in the company’s product development, fire and other potentially hazardous elements are top of mind throughout its range of doors made from traditional materials like hollow metal and wood. There are also doors made of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP), a fiberglass material introduced in the late 1930s, offering tremendous strength and moldability despite its surprisingly light weight. Today, doors made from this material are often treated to look like wood but offer the benefits of a non-porous, weather-resistant resin base.

According to Debbie Purcell, developing fire doors first became a matter of urgency following a devastating fire in 1911 at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Killing nearly 150 adults and children employed by the factory, the tragedy spurred engineers and local government to develop safety codes, practices, materials, and doors that would prevent such wholesale slaughter. While 23–29 Washington Place on the New York University (NYU) campus still exists, today it is a considerably modernized building in terms of safety.

As an enthusiastic supporter of the NFPA-80, the standard fire safety code, every three-year upgrade sees Engineered Openings, Inc. adapt to tighter rules and regulations. That includes educating customers on how such doors are to be treated in situ, especially in hospitals where health insurance companies can tie payment conditions to passing successful safety inspections and prerequisites. With her finger firmly on the pulse of new and existing legislation and safety requirements in the industry, Debbie Purcell is an expert advisor on the subject.

The company also has an extensive portfolio of proud projects in Georgia built up over the past 30 years. Some of the schools it has served include the fine arts complex at Central Gwinnett High School in Lawrenceville, West Jackson High School in Hoschton, Habersham Central High School in Mt. Airy, Shiloh Elementary in Snellville, and many others. While the company takes every project equally seriously, the idea of supplying good quality engineered openings to schools where education becomes a key to people’s futures establishes a beautiful metaphor for opening doors in the grander scheme of things.

And, while opening doors is a good thing, in some cases closing doors is also a matter of importance—as with the contracts Engineered Openings, Inc. has completed for correctional facilities, for instance. Key examples include the Clayton County Police Department in Riverdale and the Jefferson Station Police Department and Public Library in Jefferson. The company has also worked with other public properties like North Hall Community Center in Gainesville and Hartwell City Hall in Hartwell.

One of the company’s more romantic-sounding jobs was a contract it completed for Mulberry Creek Community Center and Park in Flowery Branch a few years ago. Now, the 22-acre space is home to just under 30,000 square feet of community-based space where adults, children, and pets come to socialize and blow off steam. Complete with gymnasiums, a fitness center, access to arts and crafts and dance facilities, and pickleball courts, the project was most certainly one where this fun team could have a field day applying its expertise.

As we know, life is not all fun and games, however. At times, our own health or that of loved ones comes under the spotlight with the odd routine or emergency visit to hospitals. In such cases, it is good to know that the bones of the building one is admitted to are equipped by professionals who know their trade. Some of the hospitals and medical centers the company’s work features in include Athens Regional Hospital, Kaiser Permanente Cumberland Medical Center, and the East Georgia Medical Center.

While passing through doors may seem like an ordinary occurrence in a day, humans traditionally attach tremendous symbolism to the act when it comes to life’s pivotal moments. Historically, grooms carried brides over the thresholds of open front doors into their new homes, while advisors and mentors tend to philosophically remind one that when one door closes, another opens.

From this perspective, Engineered Openings, Inc. has not only spent the past 30 years opening doors for its customers but installing them. By offering its customers choice and effective solutions alongside top safety standards, the company has been contributing to the comfort and safety of Georgians in a significant way. In a time when markets are changing fast and technology is entering every sphere of construction, the knocking of the past may more commonly involve pushing a button or waving a hand across a sensor these days. But either way, the team at Engineered Openings, Inc. is always ready to welcome new customers through their doors.

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