Paul Hogoboom Jr. started working with his dad in the garage in 1979

and is now president & COO

P & J Machining

The new 47,000 sq. ft. building looks vacant, but there is a new 60 pallet cell system on the way shortly

P & J Machining Inc. was founded in the family’sgarage by Paul Hogoboom Sr. in 1979. He was amachinist his whole life and was plant supervisor atMarine Iron Works in the port of Tacoma when hestarted working nights in his garage on an oldBridgeport type mill. “I started in the garage in 1979with my dad at night” explains president/COO PaulHogoboom Jr. “Before that I was building customwindows for Anderson Windows, but I’ve been with P& J ever since.”

P & J moved from the garage to their current locationin Puyallup, WA in 1986. Since then they haveexpanded four different times and now have multiplebuildings totaling 70,000 sq. ft. of aerospacemanufacturing, offices, and support systems. Building#2 runs lights out for 14 hours a day thanks to celltechnology and simulation software like VERICUT.P &J has come a long way from those days in thegarage, but the motto of “Quality and Delivery Makethe Difference” remains true as ever. In a 12 month

time period P & J shipped 143,514 parts with only 167 rejects. This is considered by Boeing (their largest customer) a99.9% acceptance rate. They accomplish this amazing feet by the utilization of leading edge technology for theirmanufacturing and support equipment. P & J continues to cut the per part cost by using technology and innovation tocompete on a global economic level. Lean manufacturing practices are the name of the game, and P&J excel at itthanks in part to their Matsuura and Toyoda cell systems from Selway Machine Tool Company.

Every machine and every tool is modeled in VERICUT to ensure accuracy on the shop floor.

P & J has a 99.9 acceptance race thanks in part to the software.

Derek Jackson demonstrates the sophistication level of the VERICUT

software in a simulation.

P & J is 100% aerospace and works with all types of hard and soft

metals.

P & J is accredited AS9100 and is a 100% aerospace manufacturing company doing nothing other than parts forcommercial aircraft. A considerable portion of their business comes from Boeing, but they have a diversified work loadand a broad customer base including: GKN, Spirit, Sell GMB, AEROSUD, Arnprior and Fuji Heavy Industries, Inc. (EclipseAir parts) just to name a few. They are a direct supplier for the 787 Dreamliner, manufacturing a large variety of partsranging from seat supports to floor stanchions. Although they stock very few parts for customers, P&J Machining isfluent in the creation of shipping kits or groupings of parts to fit their customer’s needs for contract and sub-contracted machining. This process can be accomplished in several ways according to customer demands.

Paul Hogoboom Jr. is not a machinist, but does havesome training thanks to his dad purchasing a CNC millin 1987. “My dad walked up to me one day and said Ijust bought a CNC mill and you are going to programit,” explains Paul Jr. “I had to ask what that evenwas.” Paul then took a crash course in programmingat Bates Technical College, and they were on theirway in the CNC age. P & J originally started out witha Mori Seiki mill and expanded to an entire fleet ofMori Seikis before adding Haas, Matsuura, andToyoda into the mix. “I first began investigatinglights out technology in horizontal manufacturingduring the late 90’s,” describes an excited Paul.“They were using it in the semiconductor industry. Itook a few tours and picked a few brains beforebuying our first system in 1998 from Selway MachineTool Company. That first cell system was a Matsuura600 HG Horizontal 45 Taper Cell Center with 27pallets. It was expanded a few years later after ithad reached capacity to one additional machine and

another 33 pallets. It currently runs unmanned for 18-20 hours a day, six days a week. It has the equivalent of 40years of use on it in a standard one shift 5 days a week scenario. Soon a pair of Niigata HN63Ds were added to themix, and eventually two Toyoda FH 550 50 Taper Horizontals with a 45 pallet system were added in 2007. EachToyoda is equipped with a large ATC (Automatic Tool Changer) with 308 independent tools per attached mill, givingtheir programmers and machinists a large degree of flexibility to mix fast track jobs concurrently with their multi-yearcontracts and regularly scheduled part shipments.

P & J moved into the their new 47,000 sq. ft. buildinglast year and immediately set up a Niigata 630 cell tospecialize in hard metals. “We work a lot in titanium,”describes Paul. “Our plan is to take our lights outprogram in aluminum and apply that to hard metals.The most difficult part is tool management, but wehave a great crew of experienced guys who areproofing it out on the 2 pallet system before gettingit to run all night on the 6 pallet setup.” P & Jdoesn’t purchase a machine to do a specific part orjob, but instead looks at their overall versatility andhow it can apply to different applications. “The onlyway we can compete on the global scale is throughtechnology.” explains Paul. “Thats why we focus somuch on lights out operations, and why we put somuch time and money into the software department,and the programers.” Through the use of VERICUTsoftware P&J verifies programs in the office byrunning simulations before they get to the productionfloor. They are able to catch errors in the officeinstead of setting up the first part on the machineand finding out there is an issue.

“We have models of all the machines, and tools” clarifies Jerry Miller, lead programmer at P & J. “For example our Haas VF4 machine is modeled all the way down to the bolts and zerk fittings.” Fellow programmer Derek Jackson adds “The closer it is to the real thing the more accurate our simulations are compared to the real world machining.” VERICUT software by CGTech is used to simulate CNC machining in order to detect errors, potential collisions, or areas of inefficiency. VERICUT enables NC programmers to correct errors before the program is ever loaded on the CNC machine, thereby eliminating manual prove-outs. Together with the OptiPath module P & J has reduced run time by 15% and operates at the 99.9% acceptance rate. The programming department runs some pretty quick Windows 7 equipment with similar processor power to that of a gaming machine, but some of the real skill is from the programmers themselves. Jerry and his team are highly trained in MasterCam and VERICUT and utilize the software to the top end of its capabilities. Although Jerry hasn’t run a machine in twenty years, both he and Derek have real world experience as machinists. That insight adds another layer of know-how that translates directly back to the overall bottom line.

P & J’s Toyoda cell system has 45 pallets. 308 tools in the ATC for each of the two Toyoda Mills in the

cell.

Paul and Cell shop Supervisor Rick Nelson discuss some of the parts

being manufactured on the Toyodaand

With Mount Rainier looming out the lobby window it iseasy to see how the sky is the limit for P & JMachining Inc. Paul Hogoboom Jr. keeps thefounder’s core values alive through technology andmaking sure that quality and delivery still make thedifference.