A Little Update on the Wheelchair

I know that a lot of you have been following this web site with the hopeful outcome of a revolutionary wheelchair…. Well don't fret; although it seems like a long time--and trust me it feels like forever to me also--the chair is on its way. I'll give you a little ambiguous background on what we've been up to. (I have to be ambiguous so that I don't give too much away to our competitors in the wheelchair world…. just enough to scare them). Where do I start? The biz of manufacturing chairs is a tricky one, the end product is so important to the consumer that you really need to have all your ducks in a row before you even think about selling one. What once seemed like a simple dream of sitting in a shop machining and welding as customized chairs rolled off the line has turned into a forced education in business, marketing, testing, managing and superior organization.

Our dedicated team is split between Hamilton, Ontario and Calgary, Alberta. The business side and marketing are in the East and the engineering, design and manufacture are in the West. I have a place in both cities…. sounds fun hey? Once I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to have a girlfriend in each port the novelty sort of wore off and now I hate it. Flying four hours across the country for a one day meeting then flying back so I can help on design is not the same as planting yourself in front of a machine tool listening to music and day dreaming about the calendar girl pinned up on the shop wall.

To design any one part is at least a seven step process, first is coming up with the concept. This may seem like the hardest part, however a great concept does not put parts on the table and, God forbid if it's a really inventive idea. Now you need to do patent searches and proof of concept. Next is the CAD model, this can be done to varying degrees and since our engineer is a genius with this type of software I would gladly put our virtual chair up against any other. The CAD model tells us if parts are going to fit, wheels are going to spin or that we're smoking crack and should be designing spoons for Ikea. Third up is deciding on materials or parts that you need to build your idea. Sounds easy; just pull out the big book of wheelchair parts for dummies and start ordering… not so fast. Although it would be nice, the manufacturing world does not say “how high” when a medical company tells them to jump, industries like automotives and oil companies hold that power. We are low volume and like the kid who eats glue, we too are picked last when it comes to returning phone calls. Once the sales people finally phone back and you have convinced them that you are worthy of paying for their product you now have to go through the arduous / ridiculous process of finding two other vendors so that the finance department will be satisfied that they are getting the best possible deal. That said, if all goes well, your parts/ materials will be on their way. Fourth up is actually turning your raw materials into the part you desire (i.e. the fun part)… nothing to bitch about here. Fifth is the scary ‘make it or break' it moment when you actually try to assemble your hand full of parts. This part is either a “hell yeah!” when everything works--or an “oh sh&*!” when it doesn't. Step six, or part testing is the next critical hurdle. You see, all the intuition in the world won't tell FDA or RESNA that you have a good safe product. That is left up to hissing pneumatics and reciprocating hydraulics that push and pull at the chair till it tears apart, which leads us to step seven. Pick up the pieces and start back at step one.

That said, this chair is awesome and we have repeated those seven steps enough times to know that. Good things come to those who wait.