Better Bottom Line with Jensen Refining
Inside Dental Technology delivers updates on digital workflows, materials, lab techniques, and innovation in dental technology through expert articles and videos.
October 1, 2012
Volume 3, Issue 9, October 2012
Page(s):
Helping her employees understand the importance of saving every bit of metal scrap was not always easy for Uta Buettner at Carlton Dental Laboratories. However, after a consultation with Jensen Refining, she came up with the perfect solution. Buettner gathered her team and placed a small piece of scrap metal on the scale. Then, she calculated the cost of the refining return on it. “Everybody had their eyes opened,” she said. “When you have a piece of scrap metal, a lot of people may sweep it into the garbage. But if you put it onto a scale and show them the price of the metal, they realize it may just be a flake but that’s $1 worth of metal, and you wouldn’t throw a dollar away.”
Especially not the kind of dollars Jensen Refining is able to offer its customers. The company can offer the highest scrap return rates in the industry because of its knowledge of laboratory processes and state-of-the-art refining capabilities. For more than 35 years, Jensen Refining has been partnering with dental laboratory owners to maximize scrap returns and metal utilization with the goal of minimizing scrap generation, which translates into greater profitability for their laboratories.
Buettner’s epiphany came after a Jensen Refining consultation, during which she learned about the importance of housekeeping and scheduling. “The scheduling has allowed Carlton Dental Laboratories to budget more confidently,” Buettner said.
Receiving a better refining return and a more consistent budget process means more money to reinvest into a laboratory, including CAD/CAM equipment and other digital solutions such as the fully-integrated Jensen Digital Solution, which is composed of a complete system of equipment, materials, software, and support.
Housekeeping is simply the Jensen Refining term for making sure every bit of scrap metal from your laboratory ends up being refined. Inadequate collection is one of the primary reasons for unaccounted metal losses. As for scheduling, Jensen Refining recommends that you refine in regular intervals that coincide with the scheduling of the laboratory’s physical inventory (end of the quarter, semi-annually, or at year end).
Housekeeping is so vital because it has a dollar-for-dollar impact on your laboratory’s bottom line. For every troy ounce of precious metal that your laboratory puts out in finished product, you are likely buying on average 1.15 to 1.30 troy ounces of alloy up front. Add to that the cost of having your scrap refined, and two things quickly become clear: first, you must handle your scrap meticulously, and second, you must have it accurately refined.
The result of Buettner’s “show and tell” with her staff is that everyone takes scrap collection a little more seriously now. From the after-hours cleaning staff to the technicians who divest to those who man the metal department, the approximately 40 employees at Carlton Dental Laboratories’ three locations are more aware and actively involved in collection. “It totally changed how we refine,” Buettner said of her experience with Jensen Refining.
That level of customer service, education, and care for every customer is something Jensen Refining promises along with the best bottom-line results. The company’s unique and trusted expertise in alloy, refining, and laboratory process can maximize your scrap returns and ultimately increase your laboratory’s efficiency and profits.
This commitment does not end with the scrap you refine from your laboratory. When the economy was testing the mettle of dental laboratories and dentists alike, Jensen Refining found a way to help Leon Hermanides, CDT, with Protea Dental Studio, an eight-employee laboratory, build a stronger relationship with his dental clients. The move helped to increase profitability at their practices as well as at his laboratory.
Hermanides connected his dentist clients with his Jensen Refining representative, who taught them about the importance of metal scrap collection in the dental office. Some of those dentists walked away with thousands of dollars in revenue from refining that they would not have realized without Jensen Refining. “That was a great way to build goodwill, particularly at that time,” Hermanides said.
Jensen Refining possesses the requisite technologies and environmental controls to process your scrap lot in-house with the aid of its full-time metallurgists, chemists, and technicians who know how to do the job correctly. As an integrated dental alloy and refining company, Jensen Refining is committed to providing you with the best possible refining yields and the highest level of service.
Also, because Jensen Dental is an alloy manufacturer as well as a refiner, the company possesses expertise in porcelain application and laboratory processes, making it uniquely positioned to offer valuable follow-up reviews of your settlement in order to help you continue to improve your material control and scrap collection system. By working together to document everything—from shipping dates to alloy consumption to scrap-to-alloy metal ratios—the laboratory and Jensen Refining can enter into a long-term partnership designed to maximize scrap returns and metal utilization with the goal of minimizing scrap generation, which translates into greater profitability for your laboratory.
Money earned from metal scrap refining is an important revenue source for dental laboratory owners, especially in today’s challenging marketplace. With Jensen Refining, you can have peace of mind because of its unparalleled communication and customer service as well as customer approval requirements prior to each settlement. High security is another one of Jensen’s facets—including a digital recording of your receipt and inspection and full accounting and user-friendly settlement reports. All of this allows laboratory owners to feel confident that their metal scrap is in safe hands and that they will receive the best return rate in the industry.
Trust is something you cannot buy; you can only earn it. While Jensen Refining does have more than 3 decades of experience in the dental industry, it does not rely on its reputation. The company is moving in time with the ever-changing dental laboratory industry with digital solutions to help laboratory owners solidify their place in today’s competitive market.
Dental laboratory owners are under enormous pressure to reduce costs and remain competitive while still delivering quality results to demanding doctors. With Jensen Refining and its highest return rate in the industry, laboratory owners have the option to invest in technology to help them meet their dentist clients’ needs. The Jensen Digital Solution addresses this need with an optimized and integrated system consisting of hardware, software, and innovative materials, which make incorporating digital dentistry into their workflow easier than ever. With the Jensen Digital Solution, laboratory owners can deliver beautiful results faster and at a lower cost with quality materials, backed by the service and support of a trusted partner.
“Honestly, there are so many stresses in business that you’re constantly worried,” Hermanides said. “When you can trust somebody like Jensen Refining, that takes some of the worry off your plate, and it is a huge relief.”
For more information, contact:
Jensen Dental
Phone: 800-243-2000
Web: www.jensendental.com/refining
