“Jay has a real passion for machining, but I’m passionate about the relationship side of the business,” says co-owner Daisy Kelly of her co-owner Jay Simpson. “He comes to me with a part and says, ‘Look at this cool part we made!’ I admire the engineering feat, but I’m even more passionate when we hand the part over to the customer and see their satisfaction.”
Due to its proximity to industry giants such as Boeing, Blue Origin and 1,400 other aerospace companies in Washington State, Multi-Axis Technologies’ customer base is heavily focused on the aerospace and satellite industries. The company’s specialty is manufacturing complex parts with short lead times, rapid prototyping and working with materials such as aluminum and exotic materials such as Inconel and Haynes.
Equipment that produces
Daisy and Jay met at Blue Origin. She was the machine shop manager and Jay was the manufacturing manager for machining, welding, and programming. With the encouragement of others and a desire to build something of their own, Jay and Daisy founded Multi-Axis Technologies in 2021.
“Our philosophy on equipment investment is always to find equipment that helps us produce for our customers. We invest every penny back into the company,” says Daisy. To source equipment, they turned to dealer Japan Machine Tools (JMT, booth #338980).
“JMT offered us the opportunity to visit the machine manufacturers’ factories to help us with our selection process,” says Jay. “Owner Roy Yamaji was a key mentor in starting our company and gave us insight into how to be successful and sustain our success.”
JMT’s equipment includes two Takisawa TS-4000Y lathes (booth no. 338536), an AXILE G6 five-axis milling machine and an A G8-MT five-axis milling/turning machine, SCHUNK workpiece clamping (booth no. 432010) and Schunk’s Vero-S pallet quick-change systems.
“Usually you buy the cheap stuff when you start and stick with it. We wanted to go to the next level, so we started with SCHUNK,” says Jay. “High-quality workpiece clamping gives us the confidence that the parts will be super accurate and repeatable.”
Multi-Axis Technologies uses Mastercam for programming (booth #133222), VERICUT software (booth #133340) to simulate CNC machining to identify errors, potential collisions or inefficient areas, and HEIDENHAIN controls (booth #339440).
“I fell in love with the HEIDENHAIN controls and decided that we would focus on them as we built our company,” says Jay. “The control is precise because it is a direct connection between the encoders and the control and moves at lightning speed. We try to do everything as quickly and as well as possible and we decided that HEIDENHAIN was the better choice.”
IMTS – recipe for production
Another smart decision by Daisy and Jay is to attend IMTS 2024, renewing friendships and making contacts that will allow them to be the only one away from solving any problem.
“If you’re looking for ‘unobtanium’ for your next tool purchase or next thing, IMTS is the place to go,” says Jay. “I guarantee you’ll find it at IMTS.”
