CAD/CAM (Finally) Enters the Laboratory Market

After years of speculation, CAD/CAM came to fruition in the dental laboratory in 1998 with the official U.S. launch of the Procera® AllCeram Crown. Labs used the Procera Scanner to scan the die, designed it on screen, then sent it to be milled at Nobel Biocare’s production facility in Sweden. The success of Procera—and the introduction of a dozen new scanners and in-lab milling systems in the early 2000s—fueled intense interest among laboratory owners and kicked off perhaps the biggest revolution our industry has ever seen.

Today, about 90% of laboratories have an in-house scanner and about 80% have an in-house mill, according to LMT’s most recent State of the Industry survey.