Background
Sure Grip Controls was incorporated in 1996 to manufacture industrial control handles for the heavy equipment industry. The Company started by supplying control handles to several major equipment manufacturers in the Canadian forest industry. Sales soon expanded to include Europe, the United States, and New Zealand. We now supply many of the major heavy equipment manufactures around the world.

Sure Grip Controls Inc. has continued to expand their product line with the development of several handles, joystick and proportional control products. The goal is to ensure we are leading the industry in innovation and creating new opportunities for our customers.

Staff And Facilities
In November 1999, Sure Grip Controls Inc. purchased a new 4500 square foot office and manufacturing facility. In 2003 Sure Grip acquired an additional 4000 square feet of manufacturing space in order to meet increased demand for the control grips and joysticks. Sure Grip currently has a staff of 26 manufacturing, technical and administration people.

Manufacturing
In-house production capabilities include a machine shop for short-run or R&D work and a 28 stations production line for wire harness, circuit board and control handle assembly. All of our control handles and wiring harnesses are assembled in our Kamloops facility. All of our through hole printed circuit board products are also assembled in-house. Production machining, injection molding, surface mounted circuit board fabrication and faceplate overlay printing are contracted to qualified suppliers.

Customized jigs and tools are used for efficient and uniform manufacturing. We have structured and documented procedures for assembly and testing to ensure consistent, high quality. All Sure Grip products are tested for proper electrical and mechanical operation in the factory before shipment.

Component inventory is carefully managed with inventory management software to ensure that production demands can always be met. Our inventory, purchasing and sales systems are fully integrated. Our attention to management allows us to consistently ship unscheduled orders within three days maximum, and typically within 24 hours. Our scheduled production orders always ship on-time.

Research, Development and Custom Products
Our Research and Design staff have extensive backgrounds in broad areas of mechanical and electrical engineering. This technical capability is coupled with our experience in industrial product development, marketing, and manufacturing to create an effective team for producing quality products. This group's abilities are not only directed toward the development of new products, but also to the adaptation of our existing products to a customer's specific needs.

The most common application of the technical staff's creativity is in the customization of current products to meet a customer's specifications for handle functions, switch configurations, wiring harness specifications, labeling and brand identification. We are able to accommodate original equipment manufacturers with customized handles, switches, LED's, wiring and faceplate overlay graphics in most situations. The majority of handles sold to original equipment manufacturers are customized.

Our injection molded component designs are done in-house using 3D Solid Works modeling. We contract out for production of stereo lithography prototypes prior to the manufacture of injection molds when warranted.

We do our electronic circuit design and development in-house. Our Engineering staff has experience in process control systems, instrumentation, microcontroller applications and programming, analog and digital electronics and printed circuit board design.

Within our facilities we have equipment and qualified personnel for machining prototype mechanical components and for prototyping electronic circuits.

Sales
Sales for Sure Grip handles have grown every year since the company was incorporated in 1996. Sure Grip sold approximately 22,000 handles in year 2004, with 20% of the sales to original equipment manufacturers in the forest equipment industry and 80% for construction and other miscellaneous equipment. Sales divided by regions are: United States 50%, Canada 30%, and Europe and Overseas 20%.

Market
The majority of our sales are to heavy equipment manufacturers. This is divided between forestry equipment manufacturers, forestry related attachment manufacturers, construction equipment dealers, construction equipment attachment manufacturers, hydraulic control systems manufacturers, miscellaneous agricultural machinery applications and stationary machinery control manufacturers.

Some of our major customers include; Caterpillar, Timberjack, Deere Hitachi, Timbco Hydraulics, Denharco, Link Belt Excavators, Risley Equipment and Tigercat Industries.