Sometimes the simplest solutions take the hardest work.
Foothill Ranch-based Bal Seal Engineering Inc. had to do a lot more than stick a thumb in a leak to keep some of the world’s most sophisticated machines humming.
“I believe we’re the only seal company with engineering in its name,” Chief Executive Rob Sjostedt said.
The seals are used to keep fluids from leaking out of the moving parts of machines.
They may not be seen, but they’re found in everything from surgical devices to gear used on NASA missions.
In all, the company sells some 50,000 tailor-made products to more than 2,000 customers across a range of companies and industries that include big household names, oil and gas companies, automakers and major aerospace and defense contractors.
About half of its business goes to medical companies, including Fullerton-based Beckman Coulter Inc., which has been a client for 20 years.
Beckman uses the seals for three medical instruments it sells to researchers.
The instruments used for sensitive work like DNA analysis can’t have any defects or looseness that would affect lab work, according to Beckman.
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Bal Seal in Foothill Ranch: 400 workers |
“We need to guarantee the quality of the instruments,” Beckman spokeswoman Mary Luthy said. “We’re only going to use parts that measure up.”
As Bal Seal marks its 50th year in business, the company projects doing $60 million in revenue this year.
The company has been growing ever since Spanish immigrant Peter Balsells founded it. In the past seven years it’s tripled its sales, according to Sjostedt.
The majority of its business is done in the U.S. Bal Seal also has benefited from growing markets in Europe, which accounts for 35% of sales, and Asia at 5% of sales.
Bal Seal has been able to stay in Orange County by cutting costs through automation. The company says it hasn’t been tempted to move its operations to cheaper markets overseas.
The company is always developing automated short cuts at its 126,000-square-foot plant, where it employs about 400 people, Sjostedt said.
Machines that coil the springs in fasteners have replaced hand cranks, he said.
That invention runs around the clock to keep pace with the thousands of seals made each day and is so secretive that Bal Seal won’t let visitors see it.
The company will be able to save more money through other inventions it’s been working on, Sjostedt said.
“We understand how to go about doing it,” he said. “It’s never easy.”
The company’s 35 engineers take pride in working across many industries when designing seals.
Bal Seal’s customers use it as an outsourcing option. With 120 patents to its name, the company’s known for creating tailored seals, Sjostedt said.
“We are a true manufacturing company,” Sjostedt said. “We do everything here on site.”
The seals range in size from a barely visible speck to ones as big as hula hoops.
They’re made from a mix of materials including plastics and metals that Bal Seal buys in bulk.
Finding the right materials that will sustain hot temperatures and chemical erosion is key to making good seals, he said.
The seals are cut to size with lathes. The springs imbedded in the seals create an airtight buffer in machines.
Though they look like simple springs, Sjostedt said they’re engineered to create a consistency of pressure with the seal, no matter how much force is applied to them.
Market Share
Bal Seal says it has about 15% of the $500 million market for the seals.
It competes with Trelleborg AB of Sweden and Saint Gobain of France.
Balsells, 80, founded the company in 1958 after his seals initially designed for fire extinguishers proved to be worthy of sustaining the hot temperatures of General Dynamic Corp.’s Atlas Missile.
Those seals became known as the bal seals.
He launched the company in Santa Fe Springs and stayed there for a decade. He moved it to Santa Ana for 30 years and to Foothill Ranch in 1998.
The company also has a 15,000-square-foot operation in Colorado Springs, Colo., which it uses as a backup in case a fire or earthquake knocks out its Orange County operations, Sjostedt said.
Balsells, who lives in Newport Coast, left his family’s dairy farm in Spain to go to school here.
Still busy with his company, Balsells is the sole owner and spends 60 hours a week in research and development.
“He works harder than any of us,” Sjostedt said. “It’s his passion.”
