As promised in our look at "What Can We Learn from our Japanese Brothers?" ProSales completed its report of BMC's Ready Frame - a framing system in which every piece of wood needed for the frame of a home is delivered cut to size, organized and labeled, with the complete layout printed on each member for immediate assembly.
BMC, one of the nations largest lumberyard chains, has reportedly been selling Ready-Frame for several years in Washington state. The company now claims to sell more Ready-Frame packages than regular framing packages in that state.
Whether it will fly in other regions remains to be seen. Said one analyst in the ProSales report: "I think that the West Coast makes sense [as a potential market] ... This works particularly well in a turnkey environment. In a market where the framer provides only labor and the builder purchases the materials, it will be a much more challenging rollout, especially in markets where the framers are smaller and less organized." Read more.
