The Employee Factor
Inside Dental Technology delivers updates on digital workflows, materials, lab techniques, and innovation in dental technology through expert articles and videos.
May 1, 2012
Volume 3, Issue 5, May 2012
Page(s):
Jay Collins, owner of Cornerstone Dental Labs in Ivyland, Pennsylvania, says company employees displaced by technology have been retrained to operate new equipment. “The technology has enabled me to take my best technicians to partner with average technicians to produce great results,” he says. “For example, one of my best-trained workers manages two other people on the scanners. This team now designs more than 60 units a day, and each product is perfected to the manager’s specs. So my top-quality work is now multiplied by three.”
Dave Nakanishi, CDT and owner of Nakanishi Dental Lab in Bellevue, Washington, recently boosted the CAD/CAM technology in his laboratory while also adding laser sintering, wax milling, and 3-D printing. “We told our people this is a whole new business plan,” he says. “We’re expecting them to do what it takes to learn a new language, the language of manufacturing. They know that if we continued going straight ahead, we’d go over a cliff. So we’re making a right-hand turn. We tell them this is a big ship and it does take time to turn—and some people adjust quickly while others are slower—but we are going to make the turn. We have patience but we don’t have forever.”
