The Trussed Rafter Association (TRA) continues to grow in influence and membership. But, operating in a competitive, ever-evolving industry, it can’t afford to be complacent, hence the need for a fundamental shift in its operation and structure.
That was the message from chairman Jonathan Fellingham to an audience of 100 at the organisation’s recent AGM.
In the last year, he said, five more companies had joined: Walker and Jacksons Timber in the UK and Munster Timber Structures, Kingspan and McMahons in Ireland. As a result, the TRA today represents 75% of the UK and Irish industry.
The organisation had also published its Spandrel Panel Guide to widespread industry acclaim and interest and stepped up marketing, with the launch of its new website.
“The guide really provides the only solution covering all the issues; from regulatory compliance and robust details, to software and design calculations. Everyone should be using it,” said Mr Fellingham. “The resulting costs may be more, but it’s essential that customers always receive robust effective panels if we want them to keep coming back to buy more product from members.”
While latest progress was cause for satisfaction, Mr Fellingham added, the TRA needed to move faster to respond to the ever-greater pace of change in the market and regulatory requirements, while at the same time pushing through its 2020 Strategy.
This covers lobbying, promotion, training and BIM standards as well as membership growth and provision of more market guidance to drive trussed rafter installation.
“We need to keep advancing, so the management committee has been looking at our structure and governance,” said Mr Fellingham. “The conclusion was that we needed a clearer approach that engaged the membership more in taking the TRA forward for the greater good of the industry.”
The result is a dynamic new project-led structure focused on driving specific activities and achieving set goals, explained Nick Boulton, who is also head of technical at the Timber Trade Federation, but will be devoting more time to his TRA chief executive role to oversee the changes. His responsibilities will include liaising with members and communicating the Association’s work with key audiences – he has already presented the spandrel guide to an estimated 700 builders.
A key element of the restructure is the replacement of the role of TRA regional chairman with ‘project champions’.
“Champions and their teams will take on a specific project, see it to completion and then move on to the next,” said Mr Boulton.
The goals, he added, included becoming more inclusive, encouraging fabricator participation and making the TRA more responsive to market requirements.
“We are asked in this business to change on a day-to-day basis, and we need to be able to react quickly enough,” said Mr Boulton.
The project teams, he added would communicate regularly, report to the TRA management committee and have the flexibility to bring in external expertise to tackle specific issues.
Current TRA projects include developing the spandrel panel guide to include use in care homes and apartments or where multiple wall junctions are required.
A gable panel guide is also being developed, with the team behind it currently in liaison with the NHBC on the forces that connections of gable to wall head must withstand, said project champion Les Fuller
The trussed rafter installation guide is also being updated and expanded to add more complex truss types, such as attic trusses, girders and hips, and a TRA quality assurance scheme for clad panels is being developed.
The latter, said project champion Karl Foster, could include a label or logo designating products as ‘TRA-approved’. Liz Male of Liz Male Consulting, which was appointed to handle TRA public relations and marketing last autumn, updated the meeting on the impact of recent promotion and communications. In 2017 the TRA featured in 51 articles in construction and other related trade media, delivering combined readership of 359,000, she said.
The new website, launched last November, had also generated good numbers, with 4,500 visitors recorded, each viewing an average four to five pages and staying on the site for more than three minutes.
“It also has a good domain authority rating, has delivered 1,300 technical downloads and generated 186 click-throughs to members, 76 business leads and seven TRA membership applications,” said Ms Male. “So it’s a good start, which we intend to build on.”
Fire safety after the Grenfell Tower fire and subsequent Hackitt Review was also addressed. Building Regulations expert Geoff Wilkinson said Hackitt would drive a change in construction sector culture as well as the rules, notably the focus on price and minimum product standards. “You wouldn’t buy a car from a manufacturer who boasted they’d done the minimum to get past standards,” he said.
Grenfell also threw a spotlight on interaction of building components in fire, product traceability and the tendency for approved products to be substituted by “something similar” by engineers or contractors.
Julian Marcroft next detailed latest TRA safety work with regards fire resistance rule changes in Ireland, and to replace BS with EN-based tests. He said it would also respond to likely developments post Hackitt, notably in Building Regulations Part B.
Training and apprenticeships were another key focus. Alison Watson MBE of Class of Your Own Ltd spoke about her company’s Design, Engineer, Construct programme, designed to attract “much needed” new young talent to the construction and related industries (https://designengineerconstruct. com/see p14). Its focus is on delivering a construction curriculum to education to interest children and young adults in a career in the sector. It also encourages and helps companies to “adopt a school” to provide mentoring and site visits and Ms Watson urged TRA members to take part.
Her theme was picked up by Mr Fellingham. He said uptake of TRA’s online designer training had grown significantly in 2017 and that work was under way to map out a specific apprentice route for the sector, but said members needed to suggest topics where training actions should focus next.
“It might be metal-web joist design, sales and commercial training, developing a City & Guilds equivalent qualification for production,” he said. “It’s in all our interests to ensure a future pipeline of trained, knowledgeable employees.”
