High-tech wonders

Building Products, Nov-Dec, 2002 by Jean Dimeo

Contractors can be slow to change. For example, most of you have been reluctant to switch to steel studs when framing with wood has been reliable for hundreds of years. But new technologies--from shatterproof glass to dirt-sensing dishwashers to 3-D CAD software to laser levels--are slowly but surely changing the way you build and remodel houses.

This issue is devoted to the high-tech products that can help you run your business more efficiently, wow your clients, or meet a new building code. Take a peek at some of these exciting innovations starting on page 14.

Also check out a fascinating story by Sharon O'Malley about what's happening in the dot-com world since BuildNet went belly up. In the quiet year since BuildNet failed under a $100 million mountain of debt, a handful of high-tech firms have picked up pieces of the North Carolina-based business's ambitious plan to integrate all parts of the building industry's supply chain, from manufacturer to distributor to builder to home buyer. But the list of hopefuls has dwindled from the 500-plus tech firms some observers estimated two years ago to fewer than 50 today.

And most of the ones left only offer single glimpses of the total BuildNet vision--a computer accounting system or Web-based product catalog or warranty service or virtual design center--rather than all of them at once, as BuildNet's founder, during better days, hoped to do.

Indeed, many of BuildNet's former competitors (some of whom snatched up components of the company at rock-bottom auction prices) use words like "brilliant" and "visionary" to refer to the firm's plan to synchronize the supply chain, which by all accounts is at least one-third waste.

And many of BuildNet's former customers, hooked on the promise of time and money savings from digitized, paperless ordering, scheduling, and payment systems, have hooked up with other technology companies to try to achieve that dream, albeit one step at a time rather than in BuildNet's all-or-nothing fashion.

Last but not least, we present in this issue the magazine's annual Site Source Web site listing, a directory of several thousand product and material manufacturer Web site addresses. The manufacturers are listed by category, so if you're looking for companies that produce engineered I-joists, for instance, you'll know exactly where to find them. It's a must-have list that you'll want to keep on your shelf all year long.

Jean Dimeo
EDITOR IN CHIEF