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March 2009 | Dental Lab Products
Forward Trends: Digital Outsourcing

Industrial-strength partner

While the small lab makes the transition from a traditional labor-intensive fabricator of patient-specific restorations to an assembly station for combining various customized parts together as a finished restoration, the concept of the outsource provider is evolving into a heftier role of a centralized manufacturing facility with rows of automated machinery churning out those individual components from a variety of materials to match customer specifications of form, fit and function.

When Mike Girard strategized Diadem Digital Solutions LLC, his goal was simple: Be able to supply any material an outsource customer requests, though not necessarily every brand. Starting with digital data from the primary lab, the high-tech facility in Troy, Mich., and Windsor, Ont., can provide copings and frameworks in gold, chrome-cobalt, zirconia, and wax/resin as well as one-piece anatomical crowns in lithium disilicate.

To meet his objective, Girard invested in CAD/CAM systems that handle this wide range of materials, from the CEREC inLab MCXL desktop milling machine and compact Imagen RX-D 3D printer to the robust EOS laser sintering unit and the heavy-duty 3M ESPE Lava Mill. But the machine that brings this outsource facility into new industrial age is the herculean Roeders RXP 500 DSC that features a robotic arm for changing machining tools as well as milling blanks, allowing the machine to run non-stop and unattended. “It’s a big monster of a machine,” Girard said.

One of the unique capabilities of the massive milling machine is its ability to precisely mill units from IPS e.maxCAD lithium disilicate “blue block” material as well as cold isostatically pressed (CIP) zirconia. Girard said he has been testing the fusing of the zirconia “bottoms” with the lithium disilicate “tops” as well as milling monolithic one-piece lithium disilicate crowns that Girard calls “the crowns of the future.”

As new materials and their complementary manufacturing equipment emerge onto the market, Diadem will grow as well to meet the new paradigm of a next-generation production center.

	Monster miller With the robust milling strength to handle lithium disilicate “blue blocks” as well as traditional zirconia and an automated robotic arm to change tools and blanks unassisted, the Roeders RXP 500 DSC is a beauty of a beast.
	Partners in design The staff at Diadem can handle the digital design of a range of restoration components, leaving the final assembly process to the labs.
	Material world From zirconia milled by the 3M ESPE Lava Mill (top) to non-precious metals laser-sintered in the EOSint (above), Diadem can produce copings, frameworks, and anatomical restorations from a wide range of dental materials.
	Axis ally Manufactured using 5-axis milling technology for exceptional precision, CIP zirconia and lithium disilicate all-ceramic components produced by Diadem allow its partner labs to focus on the final product delivered to dentists for optimal patient care.

Click here to watch an exclusive animation video showing a walkthrough of Diadem Digital Solutions’ industrial-strength outsourcing production facility in Troy, Michigan.

Click here to read the featured article, "Some assembly required"

Photos courtesy Diadem Digital Solutions