Once an entirely centralised, state-controlled industry (largely devoted to supplying the Soviet Union and its satellite Eastern Bloc countries) the Czech machine-tool industry is now privatised and broken into many smaller units with 80% of production exported to countries within the EU, America and Canada. Although the well-known "TOS" brand is thought of by many Western engineers as one company in its homeland the description translates loosely as: "machine-tool builder," and the initials were once applied (under state control) to many diverse industries; with privatisation legal negotiations allowed only some firms to keep the valuable "trademark" but even those who failed often adopted a variation on the theme to get around the restrictions - Toshulin, for example using "TOS Hulin" as a workaround.
Today (2004) "ZPS Zlin" is the largest Czech machine-tool builder with "ZPS" the parent company and "Zlin" the city in which they are located.  By concentrating on a low-cost and popular range of vertical machining centres ZPS Zlin manufactures more machine tools every year than the total output of all other Czech makers combined. Other Czech machine-tool companies include:
Cetos Hostivar  Cylindrical grinding machines
CKD Blansko  CNC-controlled Vertical Boring Machines
Intos Zebbak  Milling machines
Kovosvit Holoubkov  Radial Drilling Machines
Metal Press  Power Presses
Retos Vanrsdorf  Horizontal Boring Machines
Skoda Heavy-duty Lathes and "floor borers"
Smeral  Power Presses
Stanko  Metal-cutting and Metal-forming Equipment
Strojimport  Metal-cutting & Metal-Forming Equipment
Strojtos-Lipnik  Milling Machines
Toma Trnava  Power Presses
TOS (Celakovice)  Lathes
TOS (Galanta)  Lathes
  TOS (Kurim) Milling Machines, Drilling Equipment, Machining Centres, Transfer    Lines
Toshulin Vertical Lathes
VSS (Kosice and Zdas) Power presses