Armed to the Teeth

Of the 595,800 establishments that operate within the U.S. healthcare industry, about 20 percent are traditional dentist offices that employ only a few workers and provide preventative, cosmetic, or emergency care. Some of these offices specialize in a single field of dentistry, such as orthodontics or periodontics. Because dentistry is one of the most rapidly changing fields in the healthcare industry, all of these offices must keep up with the technological advances that are making many new procedures, methods of diagnosis and treatment possible.

As demand for dental care continues to rise due to greater retention of natural teeth by middle-aged and older persons, greater awareness of the importance of dental care, and an increased ability to pay for services, dental labs must also find more sources that are talented enough to deliver highly customized and innovative dental implants as quickly as possible to patients.

One European source that competes for this business is allshape AG (Lengnau, Switzerland), a meticulous manufacturer that specializes in high-precision complex products for all common shapes of dental implants. Talk about being armed to the teeth: founded in 2008, this shop unites expert technical knowledge in the dental field with high-precision mechanics that are “made in Switzerland.” Entrepreneurs and co-founders Bruno Aschwanden, Pieter Wackenier, and CEO Bruno-Reto Aschwanden have developed a product line (together with their dental technology partners) that is in high demand in a booming medical sector.

Dental labs commission allshape AG to manufacture dental bridges and bars and custom abutments (the implant structure only or technical crown portion on the implant). The process employs all conventional prosthetics materials, including titanium, chromium cobalt, and zirconia. The term “biocompatible solutions” refers to the technology behind the very demanding milling of hard and brittle zirconia to manufacture a product that is highly compatible with the human body.

“Precision is not enough. It must also look good,” emphasizes Bruno-Reto Aschwanden. In his shop the finest details for a perfect denture are worked in with the utmost care and devotion. This means mass market products, such as crowns or caps on the so-called tooth stump, are left for others to do. Because allshape AG is not dependent upon the implant systems of other major manufacturers, they can satisfy almost any spec requirement when completing custom patient job orders.

The shop uses an Ultrasonic 20 5-axis machining center from DMG Sauer (Stipshausen, Germany) with its Siemens Sinumerik 840D CNC for hard and high-speed milling that gives dental laboratories customized and fast delivery service. In addition to customized order completion, allshape AG sets itself apart from large manufacturers by promising to deliver the finished product as soon as 24 hours after receiving an order. This can only be accomplished if the technology in the shop is absolutely reliable.

The shop relies on its 5-axis machine and control technology to perform complex dental suprastructure work. Wackenier modified the off-the-shelf CAD/CAM software to meet his high demands for perfect results and is very satisfied with the CNC because its nonproprietary Sinumerik standard and the numerous options for programming parameters pay off, even in the most complex of dental workpieces.

These three entrepreneurs say they are especially pleased by the high number of zero offsets and the ease with which zero offsets can be managed because it allows optimal use of the integrated automation system. The installed network functions make it possible to rapidly process orders from the network. Because managing the program is similar to using a personal computer, managing the various job orders is clearly structured and easy to handle.

The company receives its orders from dental labs through its own scanning center and also from external scanning centers in Switzerland and the Benelux countries, and prepares them for production. The predesign is displayed for the dental lab on a viewer where further adjustments can be made before the order is milled from solid material on the 5-axis milling machine.

The shop currently manufactures approximately 15 bridges per day. “This would be inconceivable using conventional technology,” notes BR Asch­wanden. Other services provided by allshape AG include the scanning of models and the designing of dental bridges and bars, as well as abutments. “Our core expertise is in producing precision-engineered workpieces, and I rely on our customers for expertise in dental technology,” he adds.

The entrepreneurs have no worries about what lies ahead in changing medical industry, although BR Asch­wanden anticipates that the dental technician profession will transform from a craft-based profession to one based on CAD programming. At the same time, he sees the knowledge for cutting technology and elaborate, customized solutions continuing to be the field of expertise for companies like his.

allshape AG, Rolliweg 21, 2543 Lengnau, Switzerland, +41 32 653 06 06, Fax: +41 32 653 06 12, info@allshape.ch, www.allshape.ch.

Siemens Industry, Inc., Drive Technologies-Motion Control-Machine Tool, 390 Kent Avenue, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007, 847-640-1595, Fax: 847-437-0784, SiemensMTBUMarCom.sea@siemens.com, www.usa.siemens.com/cnc.

Sauer DMG GmbH/LASERTEC, Deckel Maho-Str. 1, D – 87459, Germany, +49 (0) 83 63/89 0, Fax: +49 (0) 83 63/89 2793, http://de.dmg.com/de,plant,sauer.