Compass Instruments Inc.

Compass Instruments Inc., a for-profit manufacturer and service provider of specialized petroleum, lubricant, and materials testing equipment based in Sugar Grove, Illinois, operates as a prime contractor supplying calibration instruments, thermal oxidation testers, laboratory analyzers, and field maintenance services to defense and federal agencies on a full-and-open basis with no characteristic set-aside posture.

The company's federal footprint centers on a dominant single-award Indefinite Delivery Contract with the Department of the Army Materiel Command Contracting Command Detroit Arsenal (ACC Warren), valued at $11.38 million through April 2027, which anchors the vendor's portfolio. Under this Army IDC, Compass Instruments supplies thermal oxidation testers (NSN 6630-01-564-5517) with a contractual minimum of 6 and maximum of 150 units across the five-year performance period. Since contract award in April 2022, the Army has issued six delivery orders totaling approximately $4.06 million, representing approximately 47 testers delivered through July 2024. Representative recent awards include a $333,750 Total Small Business set-aside delivery order from Air Mobility Command (May 2025) for heater tube and filter kits supporting thermal oxidation stability testing of aviation turbine fuel at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, a $284,604 purchase order from Defense Logistics Agency Energy (May 2026) for flash point testers, distillation analyzers, FAME analyzers, viscometers, and sulfur/nitrogen analyzers delivered to DLA Energy field locations including Anchorage, Jacksonville, Pearl Harbor, and Port Orchard, and a $97,955.85 Total Small Business set-aside purchase order from the USDA Agricultural Research Service (September 2025) for a FALEX Model 89 four-ball test machine delivered to Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania.

Customer concentration aligns tightly across both award count and dollar magnitude. The Army Materiel Command, split between TACOM Life Cycle Management Command (80 awards, $25.8 million combined potential value) and Contracting Command Detroit Arsenal (24 awards, $20 million), dominates at approximately 67% of total award count, with combined Army exposure representing nearly $46 million of the $56.7 million total potential value across 270 awards. The Defense Logistics Agency Energy ranks second with 46 awards carrying $4.3 million in combined potential value. The Department of the Navy Naval Supply Systems Command, Department of the Air Force, and Department of Homeland Security round out the top five customer agencies. Activity has remained relatively flat across 2022–2026, averaging 8.4 awards per year, with only one award facing ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months and therefore minimal recompete exposure in that window.

Compass Instruments' capability portfolio, grounded in NAICS 334516 (Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing) and PSC codes for laboratory equipment and chemical analysis instruments, spans thermal oxidation testers for fuel quality analysis under the Army's Petroleum Quality Analysis System-Enhanced program, ellipsometers and viscometers for materials characterization, flash point and distillation analyzers for petroleum testing, calibration and preventive maintenance services for precision instrumentation, and vapor pressure analyzers for aviation fuel evaluation. Representative work includes delivery orders under the Army IDC for six to fifteen thermal oxidation testers per order, DLA Energy equipment procurements supporting OCONUS fuel laboratory operations, Navy calibration and maintenance contracts at installations including Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam and Naval Base Point Loma, and Air Force procurement of AFPET vapor pressure analyzers and aviation fuel test consumables. The vendor operates five active parent IDCs beyond the flagship Army contract (Indefinite Delivery Contracts W9098S09D0022, W9098S17D0019, SPRDL122D0007, W9098S08D0033, and W9098S10D0004), which collectively support task-order activity with TACOM and other Army commands, though none approaches the scale of the primary Army IDC.

Compass Instruments holds one documented sub-award, a Falex Model 430 Ellipsometer procurement under HII Mission Technologies Corp (July 2024) for the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center. The vendor's federal work is performed primarily at its Sugar Grove, Illinois facility, with field calibration and maintenance services delivered at customer installations worldwide, including CONUS bases, OCONUS locations including Japan and Spain, and forward-deployed Navy sites.