Commercial Commentary

I’ve spent more time this July traveling than I have in the past year. It’s been a refreshing change of pace—dinners with customers and colleagues, face-to-face conversations, time on the shop floor. These are all things many folks may have taken for granted prior to the pandemic. Now, I’m more thankful than ever for these kinds of opportunities to connect.

Collaboration and information sharing are foundational to our industry. And as I wrote a few months ago, it’s how designers and architects gain the confidence to specify innovative products and components for cutting-edge building design. And while I expect that virtual presentations, CEU courses, and other digital venues for information sharing will remain important in the coming years, sometimes there’s no substitute for seeing things with your own eyes.

Consider the following: Building materials like steel and lumber remain at high prices, and supply chain challenges continue to cause construction delays, but the overall outlook for the commercial construction market is optimistic. Amidst these headwinds, architects must consider a few things when drawing up specifications: Availability, cost-effectiveness, and proof of performance.

Technical documentation can help verify these criteria for architects and designers, but sometimes real, physical demonstrations can have a bigger impact. Commercial glass fabrication offers a good example. Because of the efficiency they can deliver in the fabrication process, specifying automatically applied warm-edge spacer systems can help strike the right balance between cost-effectiveness and high levels of thermal performance. Here, automated systems can both speed up production and reduce the number of workers required to make high-quality units, and may contribute some cost efficiencies on a new project. Especially considering today’s labor crunch, other non-automated systems can lead to lengthier production times and may ultimately drive up per-unit cost.

Examples like this might be illuminating for an architect that doesn’t typically spend a whole lot of time in commercial glass production facilities. And as the design community works diligently to maximize value for every dollar spent, they’ll appreciate the opportunity to identify new areas to achieve performance and cost benefits without sacrificing their vision on a new project.

What I wrote in April remains true. It’s incumbent upon the commercial glass and glazing community to make ourselves open and available to architects and designers, and to advocate for our ability to meet their needs. Building strong relationships is more important than ever. And adapting in a marketplace that will forever be more virtual is critical.

But post-pandemic, I think it’s important our industry seize some of these regained opportunities for plant tours, in-person presentations, and other venues to demonstrate the kind of performance forward-thinking glass technology can provide. In addition, these are great ways for us to continue building build trust and rapport with the architecture and design communities.

I’m looking forward to more in-person interaction and collaboration in our industry in the coming months. Are you? I’d love to hear your thoughts at Joe.Erb@Quanex.com

“Post pandemic” is not a term I’d throw around lightly. But the signs are everywhere that we’re finally emerging from a period that has seen COVID-19 impact all areas of how we work and live.

This is unambiguously a good thing. In the United States case numbers are down significantly and we continue to see many states lifting virus-related restrictions that have been in place for over a year. And though the virus still presents a very real threat, I suspect we’re close to returning to “business as usual”—or at least something very close to it.

This coincides with the arrival of our industry’s traditional busy summer months. COVID-19 exacerbated the labor challenges our industry has been dealing with for the past several years, and it’s my hope that as fear of contraction subsides, and as some states incentivize returns to work, fabricators might begin to feel a bit of relief.

Meanwhile, we can expect to remain steadily busy throughout the year and into next. AIA’s Architectural Billing Index (ABI) for April was 57.9—the highest it’s been since prior to the Great Recession, according to AIA—indicating architecture firms are reporting increased billings as interest in new projects rises.

As I pondered these circumstances, my mind returned—as it tends to—to the importance of training on our shop floors. There are a few reasons why:

We’re asking our people to do a lot. A short-staffed fabricator must pull resources from wherever he or she can find them when orders are up. Imagine you’re down a few people on your insulating glass (IG) line, but production keeps running—maybe one of your maintenance crew members can fill in for the shift.

This scenario speaks to a few points simultaneously. First, your ability to optimize your potential throughput on a per-employee basis might require everyone to wear multiple hats. A bit of cross-training on critical plant functions (like your IG line) can be beneficial, especially during times like these. Second, it’s much easier to have someone from a different department spot-fill a vacancy on an automated IG line than a manual one. If you’re utilizing simpler systems that are easier and more intuitive to work with, a no-show might be easier to deal with.

New people need to get up to speed quickly. The easing of the pandemic may see some folks more eager to return to the workforce than they’ve been in the past year. Hopefully, this might make hiring just a bit easier than it’s been in a while.

When you do find that new person, arming them with the right skills to do the job correctly is essential, and training programs can help. Knowing proper fabrication techniques will help them do good, quality work; it will also demonstrate that you’re invested in their success.

We need to invest in all team members. Investing in your employees’ success is important not just for new hires, but for all of your staff who have been putting in the hard work required to make quality products on your plant floor. If it’s been a while since you’ve stopped to evaluate your own processes and to ensure that everyone is following best practices during production, it’s worth doing so.

Remember that no single line operator can watch everything all at once, especially if you’re short staffed. Make sure everyone understands the most important parts of quality IG production can help prevent failures—it’s easier to remember what matters when you know why it matters. And remember that some of your key vendors may offer ongoing training for critical processes as part of their value proposition. Take advantage of it.

So, as the summer months get underway, there’s no better time to do right by your people. Training is one way you can do so.

Questions or comments? Email me directly at Joe.Erb@Quanex.com. 

In the commercial glass industry, we put a lot of stock in qualifying the performance capabilities of our products. It is, after all, increasingly important. Codes are becoming stricter, demanding higher and higher thermal performance targets for commercial glass. Our industry has also concerned itself with winning the “battle for the wall” by delivering that thermal performance while simultaneously offering occupancy benefits such as views, daylighting and more. We’ve done all of this in part by working with code committees to demonstrate glass’s ability to meet desirable performance targets in large-format glazing and curtainwall applications. We’ve also done it by utilizing proven technologies like warm edge spacer systems, low-E coatings, new kinds of framing, and more.

After all, the stakes of high performance are increasingly important. I wrote a few months ago about how buildings in New York will be required to cut their emissions by 40 percent by 2030, with certain progress required by 2024. That’s just three short years, and I’m expecting to see an uptick in window and curtainwall retrofit projects in the area as owners pursue these stringent performance targets. Owners in the city will face fines if buildings don’t meet the criteria; those fines on their own may justify the cost of these kinds of improvements.

This got me thinking—there’s a lot we do in our manufacturing facilities to certify performance. But what happens once those units and systems are installed? And what can we be doing to ensure that installation happens properly?

Proper installation is critical to commercial glass’s ability to perform as designed in the field, particularly in retrofit applications where the glass must be seamlessly incorporated into an older or even historic structure. It’s worth remembering here that the ongoing labor shortage in our industry has impacted the glazing community as much as it’s hit our plants. If a glazing crew lacks the right training or knowledge to do the job effectively, the glass’s performance could be compromised. What’s more, installation difficulties can mean a job takes longer than intended. Neither of these outcomes are good for the building owners who just invested their money for top-tier performance, or for the reputation of our industry.

While there is no substitute for good training and glazier certification, one thing fabricators can do is work to ensure that our commercial glass and window products are simple and intuitive to install, whether it’s for retrofit or new construction jobs. I’m a believer in eliminating complexity from any process. Fabricators have the opportunity to do this by adopting progressive technologies that make simplicity possible, and anything we can do to make the installers’ job easier is beneficial in today’s marketplace. If we can help eliminate complexities from our systems, we can help eliminate the opportunities for installation errors to occur. These kinds of design considerations should be weighed along with everything else when creating high-performance commercial glass, including thermal performance and long-term durability.

High performance products that can offer a simplified assembly and installation processes, combined with a continued emphasis on the importance of good installation practices, will be necessary to hit stringent new code targets. All of our industry’s stakeholders have a role to play in ensuring our collective success.

Questions or comments? Contact me directly at Joe.Erb@Quanex.com.