Adaptive Concepts Ltd. is a new company that grew out of a 35+ year history designing and manufacturing wheelchair lifts that are easy to use, reliable and affordable. The Lift2Go is the first product to be developed by Adaptive Concepts Ltd.
Some of our members have been designing equipment for people with disabilities for over 40 years. In total the team has about 150 years of combined experience in R&D, engineering and manufacturing.
ADAPTIVE CONCEPTS LTD (ACL)
Officially, Adaptive Concepts Ltd is part of the Adaptive corporate group, a small set of family-owned companies that includes our manufacturing partner, Adaptive Engineering Inc (makers of the Mobilift CX and Mobilift TX – two of the most portable vertical platform lifts available). While Adaptive Concepts Ltd specializes in designing new and innovative devices, Adaptive Engineering Inc focuses on manufacturing those product to the highest degree of reliability and safety. Together, we make a great combination!
Developing new products to meet the needs of our customers is the top priority at Adaptive Concepts Ltd. We’ve found the best way to do this is to use a highly integrated, multi-disciplinary, team approach to innovation. We all work together to develop our products: engineers, scientists, machinists, welders, administrators, business people, and customer representatives. Everyone contributes to the best of their ability. To this mix we add some thoughtfulness and as big a dose of common sense as we can. This method has worked great for over 40 years, and we hope to continue to improve!
ADAPTIVE ENGINEERING INC (AEI)
Adaptive Engineering Inc, is a family business based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Together with the other members of the Adaptive group, AEI has designed dozens of groundbreaking products and has manufactured 1000’s of wheelchair lifts for use all over the world – from coldest winters in Norilsk, Russia to the hottest summers in Puerto Rico.
AEI’s products have a solid reputation for being easy to use, reliable and affordable. Customers range in size from national corporations like AMTRAK, United Airlines and WestJet, to local facilities like neighborhood schools, churches and community centers, to individual home owners who need short-term access.
The first Adaptive company was founded in the early 1980’s and quickly developed a reputation for designing and building one-of-a-kind machines for people with disabilities. We built three-wheeled bicycles, specialized playground equipment, in-home lifts, electric go-carts, and wheelchair ramps. But we really began to shine when started producing wheelchair lifts for the North American railway system. That started that in the mid-80’s and we are still the #1 supplier of platform-based wheelchair lifts to North American railways.
Along the way, we built up and sold off a portfolio of revolutionary aviation ground support equipment (starting with an unprecedented wheelchair lift for commuter aircraft, of course). You can see some of the products we’ve created over the years in our gallery.
History of the Lift2Go
Like virtually all of our products, the Lift2Go started with a request from a customer. The company were specialists in arctic aviation and they came to us and said “Your portable lifts are really great, but they are not portable enough. Can you make one that can be taken apart for transport in a Twin Otter (really small plane) and then snapped back together when it’s needed?” Initially we said no because we didn’t think it could be done. The technology just didn’t exist in those days. But our founding engineer never lost track of the concept and over a 10-year period he dreamed up an idea here, and borrowed an idea there, and, eventually put together enough of the pieces that it looked like this might be possible. Then we started asking people if this was a product worth taking to the next step. That’s when things really took off. But it wasn’t the aviation industry that got excited, it was home owners, medical equipment retailers, nursing home staff, and, most importantly, people in wheelchairs. People were enthusiastic about the idea of a lift that was so portable that one person could throw it (gently) into the back of a minivan or station wagon and use it anywhere. So we founded a new company, Adaptive Concepts Ltd, to nurture the new technology to fruition. It’s taken over 5 years of hard work, 2 patent applications, hundreds of customer conversations, a pile of innovative ideas, and scores (and scores and scores!) of design iterations to bring the Lift2Go to life.
We are proud of the technical achievement of our new invention, but a great machine is not how we define success. Our greatest hope is that the Lift2Go will help thousands of people to visit their friends, take a break from the nursing home for a weekend at home, leave the hospital early, see historic buildings, and visit exotic places. We hope to hear from you about how the Lift2Go has made difference in your life or the life of someone you know. In short, we hope the Lift2Go will give you access anywhere!
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