Janspeed — the Salisbury-based manufacturer of ‘performance’ exhaust systems — was founded by Jan Odor in 1962 as an engineering company that specialised in tuning Minis and Datsuns. As its reputation grew, it expanded its activities, moved to its current premises and began working with the British Touring Car Championship; it became the official partner to the Nissan Works team.

While engine tuning was a major part of the company’s success, the work it was doing also included developing exhaust manifolds. The logical progression was to extend this work to provide after-market ‘performance’ exhausts to enthusiasts that wanted to maximise the potential of their cars.

Managing director Mark Vaughan says: “This was how the business developed during the ’90s. The work tended to be low-volume bespoke developments, but it included some standard exhaust products that were available ‘off the shelf’.

"However, about five years ago, we took the strategic decision to re-focus and develop the business. We recognised that there were opportunities for the skills and knowledge that we had in exhaust design and development to be applied to the prestige OEM market, with companies such as Lotus Cars, Jaguar Land Rover, Pro-Drive, Bentley and Morgan.”

To head up this change, Janspeed brought in Dave Dawe as engineering manager. His challenge was not only to develop the new business but also to manage the investment required in people, technology, machine tools, tooling and logistics. “This change was not going to a happen overnight. Janspeed was happy to invest in the project, but we had to earn the money that we wanted to invest,” says Mr Dawe.

“Therefore, the initial changes were to internal procedures, with the management team creating a wish list of equipment that we thought could take us to the next level in terms of efficiency and quality. On that list was an enhancement of our existing tube-bending capability.”

At the time, Janspeed’s tube-bending capacity comprised hydraulic bending machines that, while fine for the more-traditional work produced by the company, were considered to be fairly basic; they also required high levels of skills that were difficult to find — hence Janspeed’s focus on all-electric benders, with the BLM Elect 80 CNC from Ampthill-based BLM Group UK Ltd (www.blmgroup.com) being the machine of choice.

“The change of work and customers that we were seeing also brought with it regular schedules and a good visibility of work. This in turn gave us greater flexibility when planning work, and the multi-stack bending head of the BLM added to this flexibility,” says Mr Dawe. “The environmental impact of the old hydraulic machines was also something that had to be addressed.

"The BLM Elect 80 is much more environment-friendly and what our prestigious new customers expect to see, with no oil leaks and reduced energy consumption.”

Other benefits in terms of more-efficient operation offered by the BLM Elect 80 include the ability to simulate jobs on the touch-screen control while the machine is bending other parts. This simulation provides an accurate cycle time for quotation purposes; it also allows Janspeed to optimise programs before they go into production, with any possible collision points being highlighted and the most practical avoidance routes created.

The result is optimised cycle times and more accuracy in terms of the finished bends. Furthermore, the skills required to operate an all-electric machine are different from the traditional hydraulic machines, making the electric option more suited to a younger generation of setter/operators whose familiarity with IT has a greater bearing than manual skills in order to achieve consistent quality from the machine.

The BLM Elect 80 can bend tube up to 80mm, and Janspeed is processing tube of this diameter in 441 stainless steel — a size and material that its hydraulic benders could not accommodate. The all-electric machine can also produce multiple radii, using its nine axes of movement and up to eight tools. Furthermore, its multi-stack tool system allows multi-radius and variable-radius bending on the same tube in the same cycle.

The machine can also produce bends with very little straight between them — and even compound bends. Furthermore, unlike its hydraulic counterparts, all of the machine’s parameters are set and managed using the Siemens touch-screen CNC, with accuracy controlled by absolute encoders that eliminate all conventional sensors. Further advantages of this system are increased reliability and performance, as well as reduced maintenance costs.

The addition of the BLM Elect 80 at Janspeed was part of a major investment programme that has seen more than £1 million spent in the past 18 months. Mr Vaughan says: “The investment in the BLM machine is an indication of our commitment to delivering significant improvements in efficiency while maintaining — and improving — our high quality standards. The investment also reflects what we feel is expected of Janspeed as we start to work closer with major OEMs in the automotive sector.”