Five Degrees of Passion

“Jay is truly passionate about machining, but I’m more passionate about the relationship side of the business,” says co-owner Daisy Kelly about her fellow co-owner Jay Simpson. “He will come to me with a part and say, ‘Look at this cool part we made!’ I admire the technical achievement, but I’m more passionate when we hand the part to the customer and see their satisfaction.”

With its proximity to industry giants such as Boeing, Blue Origin and 1,400 other aerospace companies in Washington State, Multi-Axis Technologies customer base leans heavily toward the aerospace and satellite industries. Its specialty is turning out complex parts with short lead times, rapid prototyping, and working on materials that include 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 director of manufacturing for machining, welding, and programming. With encouragement from others and a desire to build something of their own, Jay and Daisy launched Multi-Axis Technologies in 2021.

“Our equipment investment philosophy always comes down to finding equipment that helps us produce for our customers. We reinvest every penny back into the business,” says Daisy. To source equipment, they reached out to distributor Japan Machine Tools (JMT, booth #338980).

“JMT provided us with the opportunity to visit the factories for the machine manufactures to help with the selection process,” says Jay. “Owner Roy Yamaji was instrumental in being a mentor for starting our business, providing insight in how to be successful and sustain being successful.”

Equipment from JMT includes two Takisawa TS-4000Y lathes (booth #338536), an AXILE G6 five-axis milling machine and an A G8-MT five-axis mill/turn, SCHUNK (booth #432010) workholding, and Schunk’s Vero-S quick-change pallet systems.

“Typically, when you start, you buy the cheap stuff, and you stay there. We wanted to get to the next level, so we started out with SCHUNK,” says Jay. “High-end workholding allows us to reassure ourselves that the parts are going to be super accurate and repeatable.”

Multi-Axis Technologies uses Mastercam for programming (booth #133222), VERICUT (booth #133340) software for simulating CNC machining to detect errors, potential collisions, or areas of inefficiency, and controls from HEIDENHAIN (booth #339440).

“I fell in love with HEIDENHAIN controls and decided they’re going to be our focus as we build the business,” says Jay. “The control is accurate because it’s a direct link between the encoders and the control, and it moves at lightning speed. We’re trying to do everything as fast and as best we can, and we decided HEIDENHAIN was the better choice.”

IMTS – Recipe for Production

Another smart choice Daisy and Jay will make will be to attend IMTS 2024, renew friendships and make connections that enable them to be one person away from solving any problem.

“If you’re looking to find ‘unobtanium,’ your next tooling purchase, your next thing, IMTS is the place to go,” says Jay. “I guarantee you’ll find it at IMTS.”