ODL Upgrades to Striking, Modern Facility in Unique Urban Complex

In 2020, Orthodent Laboratory (ODL) was located in a newly redone, 15,000-square-foot building near downtown Buffalo, NY. The space featured exposed brick, huge windows and tons of indoor greenery. There was just one big problem: it was on the top two floors of a four-story building—a location that was seriously impinging its desire to grow.

“We wanted to purchase new orthodontic equipment—like automated thermoformers—but getting heavy machinery up to those upper floors was almost impossible,” says Tom Wright, Co-Owner of the 55-person lab. So, when a larger, two-story space owned by the same developer opened up just across the street, they decided to jump on it.

The move gave the lab the opportunity to reconfigure its layout to make production processes more efficient. For example, Lean-manufacturing principles were used to arrange a more linear workflow to reduce walking and transportation around the lab and, rather than most...