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Hardwood Blog
Perspectives and insights on the hardwood lumber industry.
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Monday, 10 February 2020 16:11
Revisiting How You Conduct Employee Performance Evaluations
The way in which businesses evaluate an employee’s performance seems to be evolving, as many business leaders recognize that the current ways of evaluating performance often don’t have the desired outcome. The reasons for this? Sometimes the performance reviews occur too late in the year to alter the employee’s real-time productivity. Beyond this, it can also contribute to an atmosphere that employees are being “graded,” among other negative outcomes. With this in mind, it…
Monday, 27 January 2020 18:12
The African Hardwood, Aniegre
The African Hardwood specie Aniegre has carved out its own niche in the veneer, cabinetry, and high-end millwork industries with its fantastic golden brown color. It can even be seen used in the creation of furniture, boatbuilding, and carpentry uses. Aniegre’s heartwood is usually a light yellow-brown color and sometimes can even carry a pinkish hue. With age, the color darkens to a pleasing golden brown color. This is what makes it such a popular…
Thursday, 16 January 2020 16:17
Industrial Hardwoods & Grade Hardwood Lumber. What’s the Difference?
An undermentioned fact about the hardwood industry is its outstanding ability to get the maximum amount of use and value out of each and every log harvested. During the process of sawing logs into lumber, all by-products created like industrial hardwoods, hardwood chips, sawdust, etc. all are used in one way or another. When a log is sawn, typically, the most valuable parts of the log are sawn into “grade lumber”. Depending on the sawmill,…
Wednesday, 18 December 2019 19:45
Helping Your Employees Achieve Work/Life Balance
As the new year approaches, it is always a good time to look back and reflect on the past year and what you can improve on. One of these things could be achieving a better work-life balance for you and your employees. In the last few years, it has become common knowledge that in order to have productive employees, they need to find the right balance between their work and personal lives. However, oftentimes many…
Thursday, 12 December 2019 19:29
Building a Culture of Teamwork
In today's hypercompetitive business climate, can anything short of full collaboration with your team members truly help a business to grow? Teamwork factors into almost all business processes. For us that could be our team of lumber traders to our service personnel. From green lumber buyers to kiln supervisors, teamwork is paramount because it allows us to provide the best possible products and service to our customers. As we continue to try to improve, we…
Wednesday, 20 November 2019 16:32
Procuring African Mahogany
Sometimes there can be some confusion on the origin of African Mahogany hardwood and also on the various properties of the lumber produced from specific origins. The key takeaway is that each region of the world that grows African Mahogany can result in unique characteristics for the lumber even if it is of the same species. For example: Ivory Coast: Tends to be a darker and heavier MahoganyGhana: Lightweight and light-colored MahoganyCongo: Medium color and…
Tuesday, 12 November 2019 14:13
Tip for More Productive Meetings
Meetings aren’t supposed to be fun, but they should be productive. Unfortunately, meetings are often viewed by many as a waste of time. At American Lumber, make every effort to ensure there’s a good reason behind every meeting that is scheduled and that those who participate come away with a vision of happens going forward. At the same time, we understand the importance of making the best use of our time so that meetings can…
Monday, 28 October 2019 17:08
Give Yellow Birch Some Thought
For many people in the hardwood lumber industry, when they hear of Yellow Birch the first thing that comes to mind is for its use in plywood. However, if you look past this, there are many other applications in which Yellow Birch is perfectly suited for use. For example, recently the cabinet industry has seen an increase in demand for painted cabinet finishes. With this shift, we have seen an increase in demand for paint…
Friday, 04 October 2019 14:19
Building a Mixed Load with both North American and Tropical Hardwoods
In the not so distant past, the standard order quantity of imported tropical hardwoods consisted of a full tractor trailer load. Many customers still order in these quantities. However, we are seeing more and more customers order tropical hardwoods in lower boardfeet quantities to fill out their inventory and supplement the rest of the load with North American species. It is common for us to ship a variety of mixed load containers from our Cove…
Friday, 27 September 2019 15:15
Improving Your Time Management
What could be more valuable to your business than time? When you lead your business, they ways in which you manage your time have an impact on a large number of people. Because of this, whenever you can find ways to better manage your time, it can make a big difference for your entire team. At American Lumber, we are always searching for new ways to make the most out of our work days. Here…
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Thursday, 05 September 2019 13:53
Stand Out with Hickory
Found throughout the forests in the eastern United States, Hickory is a very popular and very attractive North American hardwood lumber species. Interestingly, before the advent of composite materials, Hickory was one of the most desired materials for products that would see heavy use and demand. In the past this it was commonly found in baseball bats, golf clubs, tennis rackets, tool handles, skis, etc. but today we see it used for tool handles due…
Tuesday, 27 August 2019 16:47
Looking at Customer Engagement Strategies?
Customers these days have a plethora of information available at their fingertips. Because of this, competition is greater than ever! This presents businesses with the task of pleasing existing customer as well as acquiring new customers. Companies that can reduce the pressure placed on buyers are usually able to realize higher sales in such a competitive marketplace. Here at American Lumber, we’re intent on enhancing our customers’ experience. Here are a few strategies we think…
Tuesday, 13 August 2019 14:06
How Can You Avoid Common Customer Service Mistakes
It Is not uncommon for any business to have a few customers that can be overdemanding or difficult to work with. However, the way you deal with a customers complaints can make all the difference in the world and have little to no impact on company’s bottom line. Here at American Lumber, we have a history of taking care of our customers and doing whatever we can to meet their needs. As customer needs change…
Monday, 29 July 2019 14:12
Have you considered Poplar?
Lately, Poplar has seen a rise in popularity. With its great availability throughout the eastern United States, and its great workability with its ability to stain, paint, and machine very well, it is no surprise that Poplar has seen an increase in demand. With all of these things going for it, it is clear that Poplar could be an excellent choice for a multitude of applications. Think Poplar could work for you? Here are a…