October 2018

Many of the laboratory owner-respondents to our 2018 Fee Survey who report healthier businesses point to an emphasis on controlling costs and making sound financial decisions. Here are a few of their strategies: 

A vigilant ROI process. When Michael Farago, CEO, Concord Dental Laboratory, Westford,...

Eight years ago I had a run-in with the United States Post Office. Out of the blue, postage for mailing our magazine skyrocketed. Of course, inquiring minds want to know so I was on the phone in no time to let them know a mistake had been made. (There was no question in my mind that it was their mistake...

“By 2020, 37 million people in the U.S. will need either one or two dentures. The market is exploding and when it comes to additive manufacturing, the possibilities are endless,” said Mikael Sander, Vice President and General Manager of Dentsply Sirona Implants, North America, during his...

On Saturday, July 28, Kris Van Cleve, Co-Owner of Dental Prosthetic Services (DPS) in Cedar Rapids, IA, got a call she’ll never forget: her 16,000-square-foot laboratory—completely renovated just two years earlier—was on fire.

She and her business partner, Dennis Becker, rushed to the...

LMT’s Kelly Fessel Carr visited with Sasha Der Avanessian, Founder & CEO of Harvest Dental, to learn more about his out-of-the-box marketing philosophy. Der Avanessian’s insights might make you think about your own strategy in a whole new light.

Despite the fact that overall laboratory fees show no growth over the last two years, the majority of owners and managers say business has improved since 2016 and they are increasingly hopeful about the next several years, according to LMT’s 2018 Fee Survey. Sixty-one percent of respondents say...

One of the recurring comments from laboratory owner-respondents to LMT’s Fee Survey is that they’re feeling the bottom-line effects of the retirement of one or more long-time clients. 

That’s the thing about long-time clients: they get old. Sure, you have developed wonderful relationships...

In its Master Cup 2018 competition, Panthera Dental challenged participants to fabricate a fixed case with a Montreal bar for the maxilla and a milled bar for the mandible. Detailed documentation of the fabrication process and case were also required. 

Open to dental technicians, denturists and...

It may have been raining outside, but that didn’t dampen the spirits inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center where business was electric! For LMT LAB DAY East’s Philadelphia debut, 781 attendees from 27 states and 12 countries took advantage of a full day of comparison shopping with 109...

One day when browsing YouTube, Shane Bulger, a CAD Designer at NDX Thayer, Mechanicsburg, PA, stumbled upon Adam Savage’s Tested, a series about fabricating replica movie props. In the episode he watched, Frank Ippolito, a special effects artist, was molding and casting a Star Wars lightsaber....

ShadeWave is a patented shade-matching software program that eliminates the common challenges and pitfalls of manual shade taking, improves communication between the dental team members and reduces remakes. The cloud-based system features color-correcting software and a proprietary Shade Reference. It...

Sixty-three percent of laboratory-owner respondents to LMT’s 2018 Implant Survey say their implant business is “good” or “booming,” a percentage that has held rock solid in LMT surveys dating back to 2013. “Implants are becoming more and more prevalent because of the...