Glidewell Takes It South of the Border

In addition to Glidewell Laboratories, Newport Beach, California, and three other U.S.-based laboratories, Jim Glidewell owns Smith-Sterling Dental Laboratory in Cartago, Costa Rica and Pacific Edge in Tijuana, Mexico. Smith-Sterling was opened by a dentist from Florida in 1995 and Glidewell purchased it in 2004; however, the Mexican facility was built from the ground up and opened in June, 2005. In Part II of our interview with industry pioneer Jim Glidewell, he tells us what led to his decision to open laboratories outside the U.S. and the effects of this business model.

LMT: Why did you decide to purchase your own facilities outside the U.S. and what went into the planning and feasibility studies?

Glidewell: We felt that we were losing a lot of our business to low-cost offshore competitors. It started almost 10 years ago and seems to have coincided with the formation of large dental groups across the country....