With a corporate motto "We care about kids," it's easy to be swept up by the passion evident at Sunrise Medical--Mobility Products (formerly Kid Kart) in Belgrade, MT, located in the southwestern part of the state. The company's primary business is to manufacture and market several models of push wheelchairs for physically disabled children. Throw in the mountains and the company's pervasive entrepreneurial spirit and you have a story about a small company with a big heart that has built a strong customer base in a special niche.

Sunrise manufactures three basic models of strollers. Sunrise Karts are more aptly referred to as pediatric mobility and positioning devices since they must comply with FDA controls with regards to good manufacturing practices. "Essentially they are a medical device," said Kurt Blomback, manufacturing engineer.

Each Kart has a variety of components that can be mixed and matched to an individual child's needs. The Karts' configurations are determined by measurements provided by physical therapists. Sunrise's products are sold through distributors who deal directly with physical therapists. Sunrise's strollers retail for approximately $2,500. Although most of the company's business is domestic, Blomback said a small percentage of orders are now from overseas.

Blomback calls Sunrise's short history a textbook entrepreneurial story. The company was founded in 1991 by Wayne Hanson in a Bozeman, MT, garage. His first product was a high-quality all-terrain jogging stroller. Soon, physical therapists were adapting Hanson's strollers for handicapped kids. "We were making a profit within two years," Blomback said.

Ultimately Hanson pioneered the niche of sophisticated strollers and positioning devices for handicapped kids and Sunrise grew to a $5 million company in five years.

Today, the company has 36 employees in its 10,000 square-foot facility. Blomback said they keep production "fairly simple" and concentrate on efficiency and quality rather than mass production. Sunrise is currently in transition to control all of its purchasing and manufacturing through an inventory system called Kan Ban.

Fabricating ABS
Smooth bull-nosed edges are the hallmark of all of Sunrise's ABS parts used in its Karts, which are made from Primex ABS. Until two years ago, Sunrise farmed this work out or did the machining with small stationary or hand-held equipment. However, this changed following the purchase of a Komo VR 408 CNC router.

"We used to carry $50,000 worth of inventory of ABS parts because we couldn't get parts as we needed them in a timely manner. Our inventory is now only a few thousand dollars," Blomback said.

With this critical production now in-house, Blomback said they are able to implement a design change within days, as opposed to the months it would take a subcontractor.

"We are primarily concerned with the finished bull-nosed cut as opposed to tool life and cutting speed. As such we have to deviate from recommended tool geometries and feed speeds," Blomback said. Sunrise uses router bits from Onsrud and performs its critical bullnose cut with a Great Lakes Carbide custom bit.

"We've discovered that the thicker the plastic, the slower you have to heat it," said Blomback. He added that they hand write all of their programs rather than relying on CAD/CAM software.

"We only have a couple of dozen different programs and because we write our own programs in a specific format, they become very easy to change. We don't nest too many parts. Our drops are used to make smaller parts and as such we are getting 95 percent yield," Blomback said.

Sunrise runs two different programs with only a five-minute interval for changeover. Holes are drilled first in the ABS parts. A pre-profile cut is then made around the part, leaving only 0.030 of an inch of material. The final profile cut cuts through this "onion skin," Blomback said. This method completely eliminates movement when the part is cut free from the parent material, he added. Finally, the bullnose cut is made to finish off each part.

The company also machines polypropylene and polycarbonate. According to Blomback, Sunrise learned every plastic fabricating technique the hard way. "With the polypropylene and polycarbonate we really have had to focus on the importance of feed rates, spindle speeds and sharp bits. One advantage of learning by the seat of your pants is that you don't have to rely on conventional methods." For example, a combination of careful machining and bending was used to manufacture the precise design of the strollers' polycarbonate therapeutic trays.

Forming the Karts
Once machined, Sunrise's ABS parts may be thermally formed in fixtures that are also made with the company's Komo. The heating fixtures consist of medium density fiberboard strategically inlaid with high-temperature insulation, heating elements, alignment pins and toggle clamps. Blomback said the CNC's precision and accuracy is transferred to part alignment and heating, resulting in accurately thermoformed bent parts.

The Komo CNC router cuts the entire fixture, drills holes for alignment pins, and cuts the slots for the tubular heating elements. The CNC router cuts 11Ú2-inch-wide by 1-inch-deep slots in calcium silicate insulating strips in the fixture and the insulation is then glued in with epoxy. Blomback said their experience has helped them create heating fixtures that allow them to bend parts within 0.0015 of an inch tolerance, although, he added, most parts have no measurable deviations.

Mastering a Niche
Sunrise Medical purchased Kid Kart in 1996. The founder, Wayne Hanson, is currently director of new product development. Despite its rapid growth and new ownership, Blomback said their niche is small enough to keep them focused on quality and innovation.

Besides plastics fabricating, the company has also mastered tubular steel cutting and bending for its Karts' mobility bases. Sunrise also cuts a variety of foams in the room Blomback calls, "The Foam Zone." The foam is used for padding on many areas of the Karts.

Plastics Machining & Fabricating
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