April  •  May 2005 • Vol. XXIII No. 4 • An Arnold Publication

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The Entrepreneurial Spirit
How one man beat the odds in a communist country and succeeded in America.

Story and photos by C. H. Bush, editor

Lou Polic (pronounced Polich), founder-president of Anaheim, CA’s L. P. Engineering, is living proof that the American dream is alive and well. Or another way to look at it is that he is proof positive that the entrepreneurial spirit can blossom anywhere, at any time, under virtually any kind of conditions.

Born and raised in Yugoslavia under the reign of communist dictator Marshall Yosip Tito, Polic nevertheless managed to nurture an inate sense that he was different, that the world held more than being born, living and dying in the service of the only state in Eastern Europe that dictator Joseph Stalin could not bring under his domination.

“When I was a baby, I lived in a small town called Privoj, which at that time had a population of about a thousand people,” Polic recalls. “I was still a baby when in 1953 the people got together and started a small company to produce two or three trucks a month. It was amazing, but that little company really changed the life of Privoj. In fact, the population of Privoj grew to about 30,000 in the late 60’s and 70’s, all because of that company, which was called Factory Automobile Privoj or FAP for short. They even built a school, a university in Privoj to train the kinds of engineers and workers they needed at the factory.”

Joining the Company

FAP was the center of work life for the people in and around Privoj and the university there grew to become the target for students who wanted to gain the knowledge and skills needed to get a good job at the factory.

“When I was old enough, I went to work at the factory full time and entered the university part time to study mechanical engineering,” Polic says. “FAP was a good place to work and I learned things that have helped me throughout my life. One of the biggest things was the importance of producing quality products. We were licensed to produce Mercedes trucks and we had to maintain Mercedes quality in order to keep the license.”

Polic’s first job was as an inspector.

“That was a great job,” he says, “because I got to move through the entire factory, checking parts and assemblies. While there, I learned how everything worked. I got a really good look at machining and all the other processes from A to Z. I learned about critical dimensions and how important it was to maintain those in order for the whole assembly to come together and work.”

From inspection Polic moved to another department that offered him another major education.

“In the time-study department I learned to watch every micro move of people and machines,” he says. “I learned the importance of efficiency, of not wasting even a single second, if it could be avoided. When I eventually started my own business, believe me, that was truly useful.”
In the mid 70’s FAP brought in their first NC machines from Germany, and Polic was given the chance to learn NC programming. A few years later the first CNCs came in, and they automatically fell into his lap.

“I ended up in a supervisory position,” he says, “training others to program and run CNC machines, which was also good for me.”

Rocking and Rolling

Some time in 1984 Polic says he began to feel trapped.
“I don’t know why, but I became bored to death and feeling a little desperate,” he recalls. “One morning I sat down at my desk and I looked through the window at the beautiful view, and I asked myself, ‘Am I ready to spend the next 27 years sitting in the same place, doing the same job?’ The answer was ‘No!’”

Polic could have gone to Germany or some other European country as a guest worker.

“But that would have just been more of the same,” he says. “I really wanted to get out in the real world and try to fly on my own, to test my wings.”

Over the protests of his family and friends, Polic used his savings to move to a much larger, nearby city.

“I went there, rented some space, and I opened a rock and roll dancehall-bar,” he says. “The young people had gone crazy over rock and roll, and they needed a place to hang out and have fun. What astonished me was how successful I was. I made so much money, it was ridiculous.”

Polic’s dancehall-bar held about 80 people, if he packed them in like sardines, he remembers.

“The place would be full inside,” he says, “but outside there would be 400 people in the street.”

Almost every night Polic says he earned four or five times his previous monthly salary at the factory.

“I almost couldn’t believe it,” he says. “The money was fantastuc, and I was my own boss, but the money wasn’t what was driving me. I had wanted to see what I could do own my own, and I learned I had what it took, but I still wasn’t happy. I knew I had to do something else.”

Coming to America

After a year running his dancehall, Polic and a friend were in a Belgrade hotel looking out at the scenery.

“I told him, ‘I feel squeezed inside. I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m dying.’ The funny thing is he understood instantly. He said, ‘Why don’t you go to America. Two weeks later I was on a plane to Los Angeles with a one-year visa in my pocket. I figured I would give it a try. If I could make it, good. If I couldn’t, I would go home.”

In Los Angeles Polic did two things. He got a five-dollar-an-hour job running an engine lathe to keep from using up his savings, and he began an intense study of English.

“I knew so much about machining and metalworking,” but I couldn’t convince anyone, because of my language barrier,” he recalls. “I spoke Yugoslavian, German and Russian, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to learn anything new in America until I conquered English, too.”

Unsinkable Entrepreneur

After a few months Polic was able to begin selling his skills as a freelance CNC programmer. That led him to meet and get a job with a German tool and die maker in Gardena, CA. There he worked hard and learned to be a highly skilled machinist.

“We were subcontracting to a big job shop that did military and aerospace parts,” he recalls, “so I really learned to produce very critical, high-quality parts, things like explosive devices, separation bolts, nuts, things like that. After about two years I got the itch to try my hand again, so I thanked my German friend, bought a small Hardinge CNC lathe. In 1989 I opened my first shop in Gardena, CA. I called the company L.P. Engineering which is what it is today.”

Fast Forward

Now, 16 years later, Polic owns his own modern, 8,000 sq ft building in Anaheim, CA and employs 18 people and keeps his operation running 24/7. Last year he spent a million dollars on new equipment, including 4 new Mori Seikis, to keep up with demand from his primary customer, Torrance, CA’s Aero Electric, a manufacturer of military and commercial circular connectors.

“When I started L.P. Engineering, I knew I wanted to produce high volume, not onesies and twosies,” he says. “I was lucky to get in with Aero Electric right from the start, because as they have grown, so have we. Today, we have the capacity of producing 10,000 parts a day. For the first time we are ahead of their demand, not behind.”

Time Study Application

Polic’s time study experience in Yogoslavia has paid off big time for him.
“I look at every operation we do and work to make the weakest link as fast as the fastest,” he says. “In our case our secondary operations have always been the weak link, always running behind our primary operations. The cutting environment on those parts are very harsh. I needed a way to speed this production and still produce good parts.”

To solve that problem Polic conceived of a production method (he won’t talk about it) to speed secondary ops, but couldn’t find a machine that could do what he wanted.

“I went to a custom machine-tool builder and had two machines built to do my job,” he says. “Those machines never gave me the cycle times I wanted, so two and a half years later, I approached Cubic Machinery to build the machines I wanted. They said they could do it. They guaranteed me their machines would meet my specifications, so I placed an order for four machines. Now for first time ever, my secondary ops are waiting for my primaries.”

Fagor Package

The Cubic machines are very small footprint, combination turning-milling machines with pneumatically driven live tooling for milling operations. The spindle speed is 6,000 rpm, but it is the rapids that make the machines “the fastest on the market,” according to Polic.

“When we started the project, Cubic gave me a choice of controls for the machines,” he says. “One of the choices was Fagor. So, I took a close look at the options and decided on using Fagor. They’re very, very powerful and very user friendly. They have every possible option to change from job to job. They use a very convenient, conversational, parametric system for programming. They connect to our intranet, which is convenient. In our new fourth generation machine models, Cubic used the whole Fagor system, including the model 8055 controller, servos, drives and other components. Fagor designed all these components to work together like a symphony. They really built the machines to take advantage of the Fagor control’s power. The result is that these little machines are the fastest, most accurate you’ll find anywhere.”

Advanced Controller

At its heart, the Fagor 8055 controller on the Cubic machines features a completely redesigned CPU Board. As a result it delivers very fast processing speed, easier software transmission and upgrading through use of reprogrammable flash memory instead of Eprom chips.

“Fagor has integrated a hard disk directly into the CNC,” says Polic, “which gives me virtually unlimited program storage capacity. That, in turn, cuts down on the need for serial line communication with an external PC. For me, every second counts. The Cubic machine is built to do its work at high speeds, but the Fagor controller gives it the brain power needed to get it done.”

Polic says the controller is so easy to program that any operator, with no previous knowledge of programming, can quickly and efficiently write programs.

“All you have to do is key in the machining conditions and the geometric data of the part,” he explains. “The controller does the rest. It’s almost like having an expert in front of you to ask you all the right questions. All you have to do is look up the answers on your print.”
The Fagor 8055 was Polic’s choice for his custom Cubic machines, but according to Fagor, the controller works equally well on lathes and turning centers, milling machines, machining centers and general purpose applications. The controller also offers machining simulation with graphics in 3D, solids and for tool path verification.

“I picked an early Fagor model years ago for my custom machines,” Polic says, “but since then they have grown and met our needs perfectly. On future Cubic machines, I’ll stay with Fagor all the way.”

About his success in America, Polic says, “Everybody in the world believes America is the land of opportunity. I came here to find out if it was true and it is. In America all it takes is determination and hard work.”

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