Superior Trusses LLC had a line that couldn’t keep up and a crew that was worn down.
The family-owned truss manufacturer based in Lititz, PA, has built roof and floor trusses since the early 2000s. By the time the company reached out to Pendu, one assembly line had become the bottleneck for the whole operation.
“We needed to increase our production,” said Evan Brubaker, shop foreman at Superior Trusses. “We were striking out on production; it wasn’t enough to meet demand. And the guys handling the heavy lumber were worn out by the end of the day.”
Five years and 100,000 trusses later, that same line runs with one fewer operator.
Superior Trusses' original setup was a manual assembly table, with three people building trusses ranging from 16’ to 40’. The operation averaged roughly 15,000 trusses per year.
The problem wasn’t just volume, Brubaker explained. It was how the work affected the crew.
“It was some fatigue, and some lower back issues from lifting all this heavy lumber, because it was really repetitive,” Brubaker said. “On our regular tables, we have some heavier lumber, but it gets mixed up throughout the day. This line did this particular truss, and it was very repetitive. We had some repetitive injuries, back, legs, and so forth.”
There were quality issues, too, which were tied to how the crew had to seat one of the connector plates. One man stood on top to hit the top plate into place while another slammed the bottom plate home from underneath. The bottom plate was always the concern.
And the orders kept coming.
“We had no capacity to build extra inventory,” Brubaker explained.
Superior Trusses did its research and spoke with a company that had partnered with Pendu on a few previous projects. According to Brubaker, the company recommended Pendu for its excellent customer service and decades of experience designing and building custom machinery.
That mattered to Superior Trusses, which doesn't typically buy things to meet a need.
“We build quite a bit of our own machinery, but we felt this project was too big for us to handle ourselves. Too complex,” Brubaker added.
Evan’s brother, Nathan, first contacted Denny at Pendu and laid out what they wanted to achieve. What followed was roughly three or four months of discussions between Superior Trusses and the Pendu team.
“So basically it was: first, this is our problem, then Denny took it to his engineers, like Neil, and they came up with suggestions,” Brubaker said.
That back-and-forth is exactly what Pendu is built for. A customer asks whether Pendu can notch it, drill it, or handle it. The answer is yes. Then the engineering starts.
The finished system handles the truss from raw material to hand-off.
Material handling carts feed lumber to the line. At the assembly table, a pick-and-place system lifts and rotates each piece and places it in its designated spot. Operators then place the remaining smaller members.
Next is what Superior Trusses calls the peak plater. It loads a connector plate and raises it into position at the joint. The operator initiates the cycle, and the plater presses the plate in. That one unit ended the old workaround. No more hitting the top plate by hand and slamming the bottom one from underneath.
From there, a roller travels the length of the table and presses the remaining plates. The finished truss kicks out of the table to a stacker Superior Trusses built in-house.
The system also stores recipes, so operators recall a stored setup instead of reprogramming for each run.
Two things made this build a challenge.
The first was range. Trusses from 16’ to 40’, with varied material lengths and widths, all picked and placed correctly by one compact machine.
“You have a compact machine, but it still has to do all the variety of the needs,” Brubaker said.
The second was that Pendu had to engineer around Superior Trusses' existing equipment. Whatever Pendu designed had to feed into a working line and hand off cleanly to the stacker. The material had to arrive at the right point, in the right orientation, and the controls had to talk to a system someone else built.
The system was installed in June 2021.
Here’s what the line looks like in 2026:
Quality improved because the process became consistent, and the crew no longer carries the same physical load at the end of a shift. They made the investment for capacity. What they got was a machine that holds up.
“Since 2021, we’ve built over 100,000 trusses,” Brubaker added. “And we’ve had very little quality or machinery issues. It’s been a well-built machine. Very high quality.”
Asked what he would tell another shop foreman considering Pendu, Brubaker was direct.
“I would recommend them. If you want something accomplished, they’re the ones to get it accomplished.”
Superior Trusses had one number to call. Pendu handled the design, the build, the controls, the startup, and the hand-off to a stacker Pendu didn’t build.
Pendu is located in New Holland, PA, a short drive from Lititz. For truss and building-component operations considering overseas equipment builders, that proximity can mean the difference between an answered call and a communication lag.
“They take the time, and they’re willing to explain a little bit about why it’s done this way, and why it’s not working, and what those solutions are,” Brubaker said.
Every Pendu system begins the same way Superior Trusses’ did. You describe what is going wrong on your floor, and our team takes it from there.
Hitting the limits of your operation? Pendu builds the complete system or engineers into what you’ve already got. Let’s talk through the specs.
Start a conversation or call us at 717-354-4348.