Midlands firms rev up for speed record

A Mansfield firm is using software created by a Birmingham firm has been used to produce more than 50 critical components for the British World Land Speed Record project.

International manufacturing technology company, Jaivel, has used Delcam’s PowerMILL CAM software to generate programs for the machining of parts used on the Bloodhound SuperSonic Car.

The Bloodhound SSC, which is powered by a Rolls Royce engine from a Typhoon fighter, aims to set a new world land speed record of 1,000 mph in South Africa next year.

Mansfield-based Jaivel is more usually a supplier of technology solutions for the aerospace industry and over the years has played a key role in the manufacture of parts for some of the world’s largest commercial aircraft.

It also has experience of other sectors including medical, Formula 1 and energy.
Vipul Vachhani, managing director of the firm, said: “I found that using manual programming was limiting the projects we could undertake so, in 2001, I decided to invest in a CAM system.  The system that I had used in my previous job was no longer available and PowerMILL seemed to be the only software that offered the same level of flexibility.

“PowerMILL incorporates a lot of automation which makes programming faster and the software usually gives the toolpaths we need. When the automated results aren’t perfect, PowerMILL gives us a lot of options to edit the toolpaths to get exactly what we want.”

Jaivel became involved in the Bloodhound SSC project after being asked to develop programs for one of its customers. Over time, its role expanded to more than 50 components, the most complex being parts for the car’s gear box.

Involvement with Bloodhound SSC helped Jaivel to raise its profile, initially in the UK and now in India.

Jaivel is the only Indian company involved with the car and it hopes the growing track record of other successful projects will attract business from the sub-continent.