CNC Brand Profile

Tongtai and the Name That Means Japan Plus Taiwan

Most machine tool names come from a founder or a town. Tongtai's comes from two countries. Here is how a Taiwanese builder with a Japanese co-founder went from one-off special machines to lathes, wheel machines and PCB drills, and what to check on a used Tongtai.

Tongtai at a Glance

A Japanese Engineer in Tainan

Here is the part most machinists never think about: the name on a Tongtai is a two-country handshake. According to a 2023 profile in the Taiwanese business magazine Manager Today, Tongtai Machine and Tool began with Ryozo Yoshii, a Japanese engineer who had designed engines and automation equipment and had come to Taiwan to work for a Tainan motorcycle-related company.

A group of friends in Tainan put up about NT$6 million, roughly 10 percent each, to start a company around him and keep him in Taiwan. They named it for both countries: the first character for Japan, the second for Taiwan. The company was founded in January 1969.

For its first decade, Manager Today reports, Tongtai had no catalog. It built special-purpose machines designed around each customer's part.

1979: The Yen Family

In 1979, some early shareholders wanted out, and the company was reorganized. Yen Tsan-kun, founder of a trading firm that imported Japanese industrial goods, invested. His son, Yen Jui-hsiung, later joined, became general manager in 1996 and became chairman after 2008. In the 1980s, according to the same profile, Tongtai added standard catalog machines and turnkey production lines to its special machines.

PCB Drills Before the Boom

Tongtai built PCB drilling machines around 1984, Manager Today says, before Taiwan's electronics industry was ready for them. It came back to the market about ten years later, when demand caught up. In 2011, Laser Focus World reported that PCB drilling made up more than 40 percent of Tongtai's sales. The company describes itself as the world's second-largest maker of PCB drilling machines. That is Tongtai's own claim.

2015: Buying in Europe

Tongtai has been listed in Taiwan since 2003. In 2015 it went shopping in Europe. According to Machinery magazine, it bought PCI SCEMM, a French maker of high-speed machining centers and transfer machines, from the carmaker PSA in April 2015. About two months later it bought 76 percent of the MBI-Group in Austria, which included Anger, a builder of special machines for transmission production, and Hellmerich, which makes multi-spindle heads.

Machinery reported that automotive was Tongtai's largest market in 2015, at 44 percent of sales, and that about 72 percent of sales were in Asia. The group also includes Honor Seiki, Asia Pacific Elite, QuickTECH Machinery and Suzhou TongYu.

Metal Printing and a Smart Factory

Tongtai has also moved into additive manufacturing. It lists an AMP series that uses a laser to melt metal powder, and the AMH-350 combines directed energy deposition with 5-axis machining. In 2021, Global Views Monthly reported that Tongtai won a Harvard Business Review Taiwan digital transformation award for a project with the scooter maker KYMCO that cut a changeover from three hours to three minutes.

The business has had harder years. Revenue fell from about NT$9.6 billion in 2021 to about NT$5.4 billion in 2025, and DigiTimes reported that its 2025 profit came largely from selling a plant in Kaohsiung.

The Lineup in Shop Language

Tongtai in North America

In 2009, Modern Machine Shop reported that Absolute Machine Tools of Lorain, Ohio, had become Tongtai's exclusive distributor in North America. Before you buy a used Tongtai, ask who supports that model in the U.S. today.

On Our Floor

We have three Tongtais, and they show how wide the company's range is:

2014 Tongtai TNL-100TLSB-Y (stock 14236): Twin-Spindle CNC Y-Axis Lathe with an 8 in main chuck, 2 in bar, a 12-station BMT-style live tool turret, C axis and Fanuc 0i-TD with Manual Guide.
2014 Tongtai MA-200 (stock 12415): twin-spindle CNC wheel machine for two-sided machining of 15 to 22 in wheels, 10,000 rpm No. 40 spindles and Fanuc 0i-MD.
2021 Tongtai DCRM-422 (stock 17422): CNC Router with a 60,000 rpm spindle for graphite electrodes, fine engraving and die and mold finishing.

Confirm specs, options and condition on any of them with our team before you buy.

What to Check on a Used Tongtai

Read the control. Most of these machines run Fanuc. Confirm the control model and which options are turned on.

Run the spindles. Take each spindle to top speed, listen and check the temperature. On a 60,000 rpm spindle, ask for its service history.

On a TNL lathe, test the extras. Run the sub-spindle, every live tool station and the Y axis through full travel. Check turret indexing and alignment between the main and sub spindles.

On a production machine, get the package. A wheel machine is only as useful as its fixtures and programs. Confirm what wheel sizes it is set up for and what comes with it.

Indicate backlash on every axis. Compare your readings with the backlash parameters.

Confirm U.S. support. Ask who supplies parts and service for that model before you buy.

For more Asian builders we have profiled, see our Hwacheon Brand Profile and our YCM Brand Profile.

Two Countries, One Builder

Tongtai started with a Japanese engineer and Taiwanese money, built one-off machines with no catalog, and grew into a group that builds everything from Y-axis lathes to wheel machines to metal printers. On a used Tongtai, the name tells you where it came from. The control, the spindles and the package tell you what you are buying.

Resell CNC Take

Tongtai builds more kinds of machines than most buyers realize, so judge each one on its own job. A TNL lathe is a general shop machine. A wheel machine or a 60,000 rpm router is built for a specific kind of work, and it is worth the most to a buyer who already does that work.

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