Hot pressing is a critical stage in plywood and laminated veneer lumber (LVL) manufacturing. In this study, a new hot pressing method was developed for plywood and LVL products, which integrated both pressure control and position control in one pressing cycle. The optimum pressing parameters and resulting benefits of this method were determined for panels made from stress graded Douglas-fir, white spruce and mountain pine beetle (MPB) veneer through laboratory tests and for white spruce-lodgepole pine-subalpine fir (SPF) veneer through full-size panel tests. The method was further successfully applied in a mill trial using an industrial multi-opening plywood press.