Dental Lab Products | May 2008 Forward Trends Close to Open
The dental digital revolution started more than 20 years ago, in the dentist office, and continues today towards what will be a completely new and unlimited paradigm for restorative care focused on precision computer-based treatment protocols. From the advent of CAD/CAM technology into the dental arena with the launch of Sirona’s CEREC 1 chairside restoration system in 1987, a steadily growing selection of advanced systems, individual components, and materials continuously enters the market for technician and/or clinician use. While many of these digital technologies drastically alter long-established manual procedures performed at the lab bench and at chairside, still others are poised to eliminate much of the labor- and time-intensive steps involved in impression and model making, substructure design and production, and traditional porcelain layering into a nearly all-digital realm. The curve for integrating new technologies can be painfully slow in dentistry. However, the next generation of dental professionals as well as forward-looking owners operating technology-driven businesses have begun to establish a place for these new-generation devices in their workflow to continue the digital evolution by moving in new directions often just conceptualized a short time ago. Just as the CAD/CAM field seemed to focus on the manufacture of zirconia crown-and-bridge structures, a spread into peripheral areas has emerged, such as the incorporation of cone beam CT scan data for implant treatment planning (including the fabrication of surgical template guides), the 3D wax printing of partial denture frameworks for metal casting, and laser-sintering of metal components. Even emerging chairside technologies like digital impression-taking devices have closed the gap between doctor and technician, manual work and digital strategies, and have brought the future closer than ever. Open Season It’s not just entirely new CAD/CAM systems that are becoming players in this new digital domain. Several manufacturers have expanded their own established systems with new equipment and/or added features, or they have gone the next step toward what seems to be the future of the digital business model by opening their systems to work with data from outside sources. These extensions not only attract new customers to the individual systems in a competitive marketplace, but also add value to existing users. Where once there simply was a small selection of closed-architecture digitizing scanners that worked only with their matched designing software and manufacturing hardware counterparts, lab owners now have the option of combining a growing catalog of open-architecture components, often from different vendors, that seemlessly work together.
However, it’s not as simple as connecting an open-architecture model scanner to a similarly open design software module and then to a production device such as milling unit or 3D stereolithography printer. Open architecture does not necessarily mean plug and play. Suppliers of open-architecture components need to make sure that the separate pieces of hardware and the corresponding software not only are able to integrate with each other, but that they meet set specifications and tolerances for performance. Zahn Dental, the laboratory division of Henry Schein Dental, recently launched the Dental Wings Operating System (DWOS), which acts as a mediary between various digital components supplied by Zahn and other distributors to its customers (see “Bringing it together” on page 25). “DWOS works with Envisiontec’s Digital Dental Printing (DDP), Noritake’s Katana, Imagen, Weiland Zeno, EOS, and Digital Dental,” said Stan Maragos, Zahn Dental Marketing Manager. “The idea is to have all of those digital technologies be able to securely integrate with each other.” Maragos emphasized that, while Zahn does not have a sales or distribution partnership with all of the integrated manufacturers, the separate companies have worked together with Zahn and Dental Wings to open their respective technologies so they securely integrate through DWOS in order to provide the most advanced restorative material options for their clients.
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