A New Platform for Timber Engineering: Mastering Connections & Member Design in SPEC Toolbox

Mass timber offers incredible design possibilities, but specifying it can be a complex, fragmented process. Engineers often face the challenge of navigating disconnected tools, uncertain product availability, and time-consuming manual calculations that slow down innovation.

Introducing SPEC Toolbox, the element-based engineering platform that bridges that gap. We believe in transparent engineering, not “black box” solutions. SPEC Toolbox automates complex design checks for members and connections while giving you full visibility into the calculations.

But it goes a step further: by integrating directly with the supply chain, the platform ensures that every component you specify corresponds to a real, available product. This turns the hardest part of mass timber design into the easiest. Best of all, thanks to our industry partners, the core engineering calculators are free to use!

Presented by:

Marko Dimitrijevic is a Product Manager at SPEC Toolbox, leveraging his deep expertise as a Structural Engineer to build innovative digital tools for the construction industry. As one of the first five team members, Marko has been instrumental in scaling SPEC Toolbox from a niche mass timber solution to a global engineering platform with over 5,000 users and 30+ product suppliers. He has been pivotal in developing the platform’s technical capabilities while shaping a successful experience for both engineers and suppliers. His background is rooted in mass timber design, with hands-on experience delivering complex CLT and Glulam projects.

Jason McCool, PE, is the owner of Cool Country Engineering in Cabot, Arkansas. He has served in most of the officer roles of the Structural Engineers Association of Arkansas (SEAoAR) over the last 13 years, delivered multiple in-person and online presentations for events such as state engineering conferences, & served on the Editorial Board of STRUCTURE Magazine for 5 years. His primary areas of focus are steel & timber construction, seismic design, and connection design. He is the lead author of an upcoming wood design guide being published by NCSEA.

Adam Jones is the CEO of SPEC Toolbox (formerly CLT Toolbox), a company dedicated to making innovative construction products, like mass timber, easy for engineers to specify. Adam’s journey began as a Technical Manager for XLam, a leading Australian CLT provider. There, he identified a critical industry challenge: engineers were independently building the same complex spreadsheets, and the lack of dedicated software and education was hindering the adoption of new materials. Fueled by a white paper he authored on the issue, Adam and the SPEC Toolbox team developed a platform that has seen rapid adoption across Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and the UK. Now launching in North America, SPEC Toolbox provides common design infrastructure built with direct support from the supply chain to create a transparent and efficient engineering workflow.