Manufacturing Medical Equipment Requires Close Tolerance Machining

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Paul Prikos, vice president, X-L Engineering, stated that, "When the backbone of your operation is in the medical field, you have to be able to perform perfectly, repeatably. You have to hit tolerances right on the nose and surface finishes that would make some companies shiver.

"It is all about cosmetics with medical instruments and equipment," he said. "The look and feel of the part is important. We do work in aerospace, defense, electrical, hydraulics and pneumatics, and these industries want good-looking parts, too. But the medical field is something else entirely different. They want an appearance that compares - or exceeds comparison - with finest automotive detail, for example."

About X-L
Although machining has been going on under the X-L name since 1943, Ralph Prikos, president, bought the business in 1973. There are two plants: one in Niles, IL and one in Elk Grove, IL. There are 76 employees of which 60 are directly employed in production.

"The industries we serve are primarily medical," said Paul Prikos, "although we do some aerospace work. The materials we process are steel, stainless, heat-treated steel. Actually there isn't a material that jumps out at me that we wouldn't tackle. All of this work is very tight tolerance machining with extremely fine finishes.