Sister company, Tri-Tech Precision, Inc. is a high precision, prototype, NC machine shop that was established in 1989. In the early 1990's, Tri-Tech had numerous opportunities to bid 5-axis aerospace work and was forced to either no-bid the job or to spend large amounts of time on programming and multiple setups in order to simulate 5-axis capabilities.

In 1995, Tri-Tech designed and developed a programmable two-axis spindle head for attachment to their existing three-axis NC machining centers. The portable head attachment, together with their own three-axis machine, gave them full 5-axis machining capability. Tri-Tech found the increased capability of the programmable head allowed them to bid and win more technical and higher profit margin jobs.

Tri-Tech saw the market potential of their new invention and wanted to produce a commercial version of the device for attachment to any three-axis CNC machine, thus providing 5-axis capability at a fraction of the cost of a traditional 5-axis machining center. The first production Model 5400 was released in March of 1997 and debuted at the WESTEC '97 machine tool show.

Every year has seen significant enhancements including improved spindle designs, integrated coolant, increased precision worm and bevel gears. All enhancements provide increased strength and rigidity while improving accuracy through both mechanics and software calibration.