Product Testing Gives Lincoln's Partner Laboratories a Leg Up

Lincoln Dental Supply's partner laboratories test products for quality and performance before they're added to the company's lineup.

Laboratory owners have long bemoaned products that come to market before their time. One way proactive labs are combating the problem is by getting in on the ground floor. About a dozen U.S. laboratories are testing labs for Lincoln Dental Supply, evaluating the quality and performance of all of the products the company manufactures, as well as those it's planning to distribute, before it adds them to its product lineup.

Here's how the testing process works: Once Lincoln has completed its own R&D--through both its six-person, in-house laboratory as well as independent testing facilities--it asks the laboratory to incorporate the product into its production cycle. The labs can take up to two weeks to do the testing and then report back to Lincoln by completing a questionnaire about the product's performance,...