Summary
• The 2009 TTJ Best Technical Information Support Award is open for entries.
• TRADA is sponsoring the category once more.
• The closing date is 31 July.
• Entry forms can be downloaded from TRADA and TTJ’s websites.
This year TRADA will celebrate its 75th anniversary. In that time it has grown to be a respected and authoritative provider of technical information for users and specifiers of timber. As such, we are pleased to sponsor the TTJ Best Technical Information Support Award again this year, to recognise how effectively producers and manufacturers are supporting specifiers and users of wood products with accessible technical information.
As the Timber Development Association, TRADA’s original brief in 1934 was to defend timber’s position against other materials such as steel, which were eroding traditional markets including bridge and shipbuilding.
In more recent times, since the launch of our website, we have opened up a regular dialogue with architects and specifiers who are hungry for information which will both fire the imagination and underpin their designs with solid, technical knowledge. We must acknowledge, too, the way the industry is changing. Demands for better environmental performance and ever more stringent regulatory controls will lead to a new world of engineered timber performance products.
Supporting information
Although in many cases these products may “improve on nature”, making timber more stable and stronger, they have to be specified and used correctly and their strengths and limitations fully explained. The onus is therefore on manufacturers to provide supporting information that will ensure lifelong performance. And companies who do go the extra distance to invest in product development and quality technical literature further differentiate themselves from their competitors.
The TTJ Best Technical Information Support Award is open to any company supplying, using or specifying timber. The technical information may take a variety of forms, including: product literature; technical manuals; telephone helplines; websites; and events.
We will also be looking for evidence of how sales staff have used the information in support of their customers, or how it has been applied in staff training and development. Companies who enter for the award might not have produced the technical information themselves, but can demonstrate how they integrate a supplier’s technical information into their own sales and training strategy. Last year’s TTJ Award was won by wood for good’s Online Learning programme, which was likened to a “timber Open University” by the judges.
Species database
TRADA itself is continuously evaluating what it offers to members and adding new products and services – including technical information. This year it expanded its database of timber species with 26 new commercially available timbers following a major programme to collate data on their properties, characteristics and availability.
Conferences and seminars are a key tool for disseminating information and last month’s In Touch with Timber was well attended and well regarded, as was our third Regenerating Historic Buildings seminar in Manchester’s Museum of Science & Industry.
New this year was the first seminar for members, staged jointly with Clarks, entitled “Help your firm survive the tough times ahead”, focusing on area such as contract protection and cash flow enhancement.
Keeping abreast of product developments, TRADA Technology, in consultation with sister company CCB Evolution, has also published four guidance documents on using cross-laminated timber.
Copies of the TTJ Best Technical Information Support entry form can be downloaded from the TTJ website at www.ttjonline.com.awards, or the TRADA website at www.trada.co.uk. The deadline is July 31. For further information email Louise Govier at lgovier@trada.co.uk.