Increase Cash Flow, Decrease Labor Costs with Strategy Gold Milling
Outsourcing production of alloy restorations helps laboratory operate more efficiently
By Jamie Stover, CDT
General Manager/COO
Ziemek Laboratories
Olympia, WA
Key Takeaways
• Eliminate the need for a skilled technician to handle waxing the restoration, sprueing/investing, burnout, casting, and divesting
• Avoid keeping large quantities of alloy in stock for casting
• The marginal quality and overall fit of the milled restorations is superb, and the surface texture of the milled full-gold crowns is exceptionally smooth
Digital technology is changing not only the type of restorations we fabricate but the way we fabricate all restorations daily. As the popularity of monolithic all-ceramic restorations continues to increase, providing these restorations quickly at a competitive price is a necessity, but equally important is utilizing the digital workflow effectively to provide any restoration a dental client prescribes. This currently includes alloy-based restorations, and it most likely will for the foreseeable future.
At Ziemek Laboratories, maximizing the ROI on capital invested in technology by utilizing it for as many applications as possible while maximizing the efficiency in our workflow is a top priority, as it should be for any dental laboratory with a desire to be competitive in today's marketplace. Partnering with Strategy Milling for alloy restorations helps Ziemek Laboratories accomplish these goals. Fabricating full-gold and PFM restorations traditionally is labor intensive. Consider the steps involved for a full-gold restoration: waxing the restoration, sprueing/investing, burnout, casting, divesting, and fit/polishing. All steps require the hands-on labor of a skilled technician.
A few years ago at Ziemek Laboratories, we hand-waxed less than 10% of the alloy crowns we fabricated, and the vast majority were digitally designed and wax printed in-house, which eliminated the labor of hand-waxing alloy restorations but did not eliminate the other previously mentioned steps required to produce them. In addition to the labor required to produce alloy restorations, we purchased and stocked large quantities of alloy for casting. Today we utilize our wax printer for many other applications, we have moved the skilled alloy technicians to other roles, and we are more profitable on the alloy restorations we produce. How?
Sending the designed STL files for alloy restorations to Strategy Milling has eliminated the aforementioned labor steps associated with casting. With high noble and noble alloy available and milled full-contour and coping/framework options, it has also improved our monthly cash flow by eliminating the need to keep large quantities of alloy in stock for casting. The marginal quality and overall fit of the milled restorations is superb, and the surface texture of the milled full-gold crowns is so smooth compared to a casting that the polishing time is reduced by approximately 30%, saving us finishing labor.
Partnering with Strategy Milling has made our alloy restorations more profitable by reducing the amount of hands-on labor required to produce them, improved our monthly cash flow, and allowed us to maximize our digital efficiency.
Disclaimer: The statements and opinions contained in the preceding material are not of the editors, publisher, or the Editorial Board of Inside Dental Technology.
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