Soaring JETCAM originally flew from Sydney

In reality, the company has been at the forefront of automation technology software in Australia and New Zealand since 1986.

It had an active participation in JETCAM's development shortly after JETCAM's embryonic beginnings at fabrication contractor FJ Precision. Further exposed to high end Trumpf and Finn-Power automation technology in the early 1990's led to the development of what was to become one of the most well-known software suites for the CAD/CAM industry, JETCAM.

Advanced Sheetmetal Technologies managing director Ingo Bentrup said JETCAM International was celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2006 and its software suites commanded continuing success among CADCAM and automation products.

"That JETCAM - an Australian conceived and developed software recognised internationally - has not only survived 20 years but has become a major brand name in our global industry, is testimony to the software development expertise and knowledge in this country.

"When the seeds were sown all those years ago, the JETCAM concept was naturally viewed as a mere pipe dream by a software-phobic industry; but outstanding work put into the development all those years ago - particularly by FJ Precision - became an outstanding success based on the worldwide market by Australian expertise.

"That development formed the basis of a very viable software for the sheetmetal automation industry and was spotted early on by JETCAM decision-makers who purchased the technology and took it to the next level, making it the internationally successful product it is today.

"Having seen, and been part of, the product developed from the ground up, naturally our company is pleased to be authorised distributor of the JETCAM software suite in Australia."

Today, the JETCAM group of companies services more than 20,000 licences across 70 countries worldwide. The company has been based in Europe since 1989 to concentrate on its growing customer and dealer base and has since established itself as a world leader in the field of CNC CAD/CAM automation.

According to JETCAM, the product has always been about satisfying two apparently contradictory requirements - at one end automating the repetitive, time-consuming and error-prone tasks while at the other still giving the operator full control where desired.

As a result the same software is being used interactively by single machine job shops as for totally unmanned operation in multinational companies.

In 1999 the JETCAM group floated on the London Stock Exchange (AIM) and Camtek Ltd in the UK joined the group the same year, expanding the product range into milling, turning, wire EDM and multi-axis laser applications.

In 2003 JETCAM released its Remote Control Processing (RCP) module, which allows JETCAM Expert to be controlled externally from other applications such as MRP/ERP systems. This level of automation contributed to several high-end sales into multinational aerospace companies.

In 2004 the company reverted to private ownership, and launched a new free form (true shape) high performance nesting module (FFHPN), which yields up to 15% material saving over other nesting algorithms.

It also expanded its product functionality to cover routing and composite cutting requirements - where, with respect to the latter, one user even advised that the system had paid for itself in just over four weeks due to massive material savings achieved.

In 2005 JETCAM continued its steady growth and signing new dealers around the world, including significant expansion in the Americas through NestONE Solutions, a new dealership created by some of the best known, most knowledgeable and respected individuals in the business.

JETCAM Orders Controller Version 6 was also released, allowing users to quickly compile assemblies of component orders to then be passed to JETCAM Expert for interactive or fully automatic processing.