Having explored the history of digital dentistry in our previous ADL blog post, we can explore now its use in today’s world. One such use of digital dental machinery is in a dental laboratory setting where it partially automates the manufacturing of dental prostheses and restorations.
While one would expect clinicians to be the main area of employing digital dentistry advances, it is a burden to have a clinician to divide his or her attention between clinical and lab work. Moreover, highly technical involvement of functional digital dental systems – CAD/CAM equipment, in particular, makes them less attractive to clinicians. Therefore, major dental CAD/CAM systems are often implemented by dental laboratories. Hence converting to digital dental labs.
One will ask what digital dental lab is. Well, as you can guess, it is a dental laboratory that has equipped with dental CAD/CAM technology to some extent. Before going into details of the extent to which dental lab can integrate digital dental equipment, let us first see what modules of dental CAD/CAM systems are available:
Digitization and Design System Module – it includes software and hardware that is used in the process of capturing a 3D image of body part getting the treatment and design of dental appliances for that part of the body.
Manufacturing System Module – it includes software and hardware that are used in the process of manufacturing the dental appliance.
Finishing System Module – it includes all the software and hardware that are used to finalize the manufactured product. Often equipment used in non-digital dental labs can be used for this purpose.
Details of each system and components of CAD/CAM Systems, in general, is subject of its own that can be discussed in a series of blog posts.
Due to various reasons such as the presence of trained technicians or financial provisions dental lab can choose not to use all of the system modules. We can group labs based on the level of usage of one or all of the modules as follows:
Fully digital dental lab. Such a dental lab employs all three system modules mentioned above. Usually, all three modules have unified workflow which works like an assembly line. The advantage of having all three system modules is the authenticity of the work, the ability to control the quality of work from the moment case is received from clinician to delivery and efficiency. The only disadvantage is the cost, which especially can be a limiting factor for newly opened or smaller labs.
Digital design dental labs. This kind of labs will have only Digitization and design system module, which allows them to design the appliance and send it out to manufacturing labs or centers. Once the dental appliance has been manufactured and received by digital design dental labs, it will be finalized to deliver to the clinician. The advantage of having such set up is lower set up and maintenance cost.
Digital manufacturing dental labs. These dental labs or manufacturing centers focus on manufacturing of already designed appliance sent by other labs – usually digital design dental lab. Often such as dental labs or manufacturing centers handle a large volume of work which makes them cost-effective.
Regardless of the extent to which dental lab employs the dental CAD/CAM Systems, it takes time to set up and run digital dental labs. Especially, having a trained technician who fully understands the dental technology side of things as well as computer technology end. As Whipmix says it is a learning curve to get to the point where one can be efficient with digital dental technology.
Another challenge in running a digital dental lab is quality control. Due to its low-cost outsourcing the part or all of the manufacturing is widely practiced amongst the digital dental lab community. The majority of outsourcing is from mainland China. Although some of the Chinese dental labs can provide high-quality products, more and more dental labs in the US suffer from poor quality work. Hunting for cheap outsourcing labs will get you cheap and ugly crowns. That is why some of the US-based digital dental labs set it as their mission statement to provide the US-made dental appliances. It allows for better quality control, high customizability, and reliability. Consequently, the clinician can rest assured about the quality of work he or she is getting from such labs.
In summary, we can see that going digital has big enough challenges that should be factored into the equation. Leg work you do while setting up your digital dental lab pays off fairly quickly thanks to efficient workflow, high aesthetics and reliability of dental appliances, and partial automatization of the design and manufacturing process.
What do you think about the challenges of going digital? Comment below or email us with any questions.