Ralph Braun, founder of BraunAbility, has been overcoming obstacles ever since he was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy as a child.

Frustrated by the challenges of navigating a college campus in a conventional wheelchair, Braun designed his own battery-powered scooter to get around. Later, when his employer moved its factory farther away from his own home and he needed more reliable transportation, Braun converted a Dodge full-size van so he could drive it from a wheelchair. The Winamac, Ind.-based company that bears his name started out in Braun's garage in the early 1970s and evolved into a global manufacturer with approximately $200 million in sales in 2008.

BraunAbility, which manufactures wheelchair lifts and converts vans and minivans for wheelchair accessibility, had the right strategies in place to overcome one of the worst global economic downturns in history. While sales dropped off slightly in 2009, the company improved its operating margin by 21% from the previous year and is forecasting "near double-digit" revenue growth for 2010, according to BraunAbility President Nick Gutwein.

In 2009, thanks to its emphasis on lean manufacturing practices, the company also reduced its inventory levels by 30% and improved its inventory turns by 31%, according to Gutwein.

Gutwein points to several strategies that helped the company boost its profits during the recession, including maintaining strong supplier partnerships and collaborating with its dealer network to manage costs.

He notes that much of the groundwork for its survival of the recession took place before the economy turned bad. For example, BraunAbility already had strong relationships with suppliers, which helped when the company turned to them for ideas on how to cut costs and be more efficient.

Winamac, Ind.-based BraunAbility makes wheelchair lifts and converts vans and minivans for wheelchair accessibility.

"When it comes time where you're seeing major discontinuity in a market -- in this case a recession -- that's not the time to start figuring this stuff out," Gutwein tells IndustryWeek.com. "You had better already have in place a supply chain management strategy that has guidelines, performance measures and partnerships with suppliers. So when the time comes, it's not like you have to suddenly say, 'Alright, we need to start working together on this.' It's more like, 'Here we are together. How do we deal with this?'"

Gutwein points out that all of BraunAbility's dealers survived the recession, thanks to a rightsizing initiative that took place in early 2008. He emphasizes that the restructuring of its dealer network was not prompted by the impending recession, but rather because "we had too many dealers, and if you have too many dealers, it's hard for some of them to survive."

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