The dental industry is a rapidly moving landscape and we are completely in ‘the perfect storm’ of change. Each of those changes, whether they are scanners, materials, restorations, customer services or workflows, requires time to develop and finance to deliver.  Build in to this the ever increasing regulations that are added daily and there has never been a more difficult time to be a dental business.

However with that said, there has also never been a more exciting time. With each change and development a multitude of possibilities and opportunities appear.

Dental Technology Services (DTS) was one of the first dental laboratories in Europe to start working with CAD/CAM technology. Little did we know then the complete transformation that it would bring to our industry!  Due to our long-standing expertise in this area, the directors of DTS 9 years ago were one of the founding members of the Core3dcentres group.  Core3dcentres has grown to be one of the largest manufacturers of digital dental restorations in the world. Core3dcentres are advanced digital dental production centres based in 11 countries throughout the world, manufacturing CAD/CAM dental appliances for dental laboratories, who in turn supply over 65,000 dentists on a daily basis.  Historically Core3dcentres has not dealt directly with dentists, therefore you may not have heard of us, but like “Intel” our substructures are “inside” a vast quantity of the restorations you may have fitted.

As more and more restorations are being made to completion by CAD/CAM the lines between a CAD/CAM centre and a dental laboratory are becoming blurred. Many of the traditional supply companies like Straumann, Dentsply and Henry Schien are starting to manufacture restorations themselves, however they do not have the skill set yet of the traditional local dental laboratory.

Now that digital scanners enter the market and newer monolithic materials become common practice the capital investment for machinery is too much of a barrier for local manufacturing of specific products if they want to remain competitive.  We have seen this happen already at DTS and through our existing Core3dcentres global network. DTS has now taken the next step to develop an efficient and modern dental manufacturing company.

At the end of 2015 DTS announced a strategic relationship with some of the world’s leading dental laboratories in North America, Holland, Germany, Japan, China and Australia - with a few more countries to join us in 2016. Working in a much closer relationship with these forward thinking and likeminded dental businesses is helping us to quickly develop the workflows and restorations our dentists want.  This relationship will allow us to share resources and production capacity to deliver a cost effective and high quality solution to our local markets like never before.

What will our customers see change? Nothing but good things. 

We have been working closely with these global businesses for many years now and have already integrated some of their ideas in our business. We will always remain a local, family business but now with a backbone that can develop us in to a new generation of dental laboratories.

Our dental world is changing and DTS has embraced it and is developing with it. We hope you will join us on our journey to the new world.

Originally published in Scottish Dental magazine