Taiwan's Tongtai expands

Tongtai is Taiwan's number one manufacturer of machine tools. With 680 employees, Tongtai is building some 200 machine sets/month and has a target turnover for the year of $160 million. While over the next five years it plans to double in size. The new factory has an area of over 86,200 m², and it incorporates six separate air-conditioned production bays, all equipped with four 20 ton cranes and a guide rail system to manoeuvre the machines. Tongtai makes 15 models of CNC lathe (including twin spindle models and centres with driven tools, y-axis and gantry loading); 16 types of vertical turning machine; 12 different models of drilling/tapping machine; 14 styles of vertical machining centre (including high speed machines and moving column models; a full range of horizontal machining centres (with 400, 500, 630 and 800 mm² pallets sizes); and special-purpose machines. In addition, the company also produces high speed PCB drilling machines and offers full turnkey facilities for multiples of linked machine transfer lines. The Taiwanese company has had technical co-operation agreements with a number of Japanese machine tool builders over the years, and staff from Hitachi Seiki were employed after the closure of that company – including top management and the designers in Japan. Tongtai supplies such house-hold names as Honda, Yamaha, Toyota, Nissan and Mitsubishi on a regular basis. A number of machines have also been installed in the UK.