Cascadia Structural Timber Solutions is delivering on the promise of off-site construction with a productization strategy powered by Autodesk Informed Design.
By standardizing components while maintaining flexibility, Cascadia has slashed production times—standardized yet configurable trusses now take just 2 hours to process compared to over 20 hours for a comparable custom truss.
The shift to scalable workflows positions Cascadia to process up to 400 linear feet of trusses daily, meeting growing demand sustainably.
Headquartered in Portland, OR, Cascadia Structural Timber Solutions has been fabricating timber and glulam beams, columns, and trusses for over 20 years. Renowned for their expertise in crafting high-quality timber components for projects of all sizes, Cascadia has recently taken bold steps to scale their operations and meet surging demand. Yet, the path to efficiency and scalability was anything but straightforward, as the company worked to overcome challenges in balancing customization with production efficiency.
The growing demand for sustainable mass timber construction brings a unique challenge: how to meet diverse customer needs while maintaining production efficiency. For Cascadia, this means finding a balance between delivering highly customized designs and optimizing their workflows.
“Customization at high volumes is close to impossible—especially at the prices our customers expect,” said Kyle Gilham, Director of Product Development at Cascadia. These bespoke jobs often caused significant disruptions on the shop floor, creating inefficiencies and bottlenecks that hindered their ability to scale.
Determined to overcome these obstacles, Cascadia embraced Lean Manufacturing principles and began seeking tools that could standardize processes while preserving the flexibility and creativity that set them apart.
To tackle the challenge of balancing customization with efficiency, Cascadia turned to Autodesk Informed Design—a solution that bridges the gap between bespoke design and standardized production. With its parameter-driven models, Informed Design enables Cascadia to create components that allow for customization while staying within manufacturable constraints.
“When we saw what Informed Design was offering, we immediately recognized its advantages,” Gilham said. “It helps architects and engineers design with products that already have manufacturing data built in, allowing these requirements to be addressed earlier in the process and reducing overall design time.”
One standout application is their work with glulam trusses. By leveraging Informed Design, Cascadia has created a process that combines standardization with flexibility. Instead of offering a fixed set of predefined options, Cascadia produces standardized trusses that can be customized in dimensions and design features important to their customers—while still adhering to their manufacturing constraints. This approach allows them to meet unique project requirements efficiently, significantly reducing production time compared to fully custom trusses.
The shift to productization has already begun to transform Cascadia’s operations:
Improved lead times: Standardized, configurable truss models now take only 2 hours to process, while a comparable custom truss can require over 20 hours.
Streamlined quoting: Using pre-engineered models, Cascadia delivers quotes in hours rather than days, boosting their capacity to win more projects.
Sustainable production goals: Cascadia recently achieved a milestone of producing over 16,000 board feet in a single day on a highly standardized job.
These efficiencies allow Cascadia to focus on delivering exceptional products while staying competitive in the fast-growing mass timber market.
—Kyle Gilham, Director of Product Development, Cascadia Structural
Cascadia’s vision for the future goes beyond trusses. Using Informed Design, the company plans to expand its product offerings to include standardized beams, columns, and steel connectors. These innovations are designed to simplify the specification process for engineers and further integrate mass timber into modern construction.
“While we are starting off with standard trusses, that is by no means where we want to stop. Our vision is to create multiple products for the mass timber industry,” Gilham explained. “We’re also starting to have conversations earlier in the design process, providing value-improving alternatives before final drawings are complete. This allows us to offer more sustainable, efficient options that reduce costs for our customers.”
Cascadia Structural Timber Solutions exemplifies how productization can drive innovation and growth in the construction industry. By embracing standardized yet configurable solutions with Autodesk Informed Design, Cascadia is redefining what’s possible in mass timber manufacturing—proving that efficiency and creativity can go hand in hand.
Interested in learning more about how Autodesk Informed Design can transform your workflows? Try it today – get started with Informed Design for Inventor or Informed Design for Revit.
