COST EFFICIENCY IS A STRONG FACTOR IN EXPLAINING DISRUPTIVE DENTAL LABORATORY PRACTICE.

 

COST EFFICIENCY IS A STRONG FACTOR IN EXPLAINING DISRUPTIVE DENTAL LABORATORY PRACTICE.

Disruptive dental laboratory practices according to Farooq and Khan (2022), are those that use innovative technologies to improve the quality, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of dental care. Cost efficiency is a key factor in determining disruptive practices that make dental care more accessible to a wider range of patients (Gomez-Perez, M., & Calatayud-Gonzalez, P. (2021).

Traditional dental laboratory practices are often labor-intensive; and require a lot of manual work, fraught with inaccuracies and inefficiencies. Traditional practice can make restorations expensive, especially for complex restorations (Farooq & Khan, 2022). Technology-powered laboratory practice promotes automated processes as digital technologies reduce the amount of labour required and make a significant reduction in cost possible and ultimately dental patients enjoy a reduction in cost incurred for treatment.

Cost efficiency is the ability to produce goods or services at a lower cost while maintaining or improving quality (Farooq & Khan, 2022). In the context of dental laboratory practice, cost-efficiency can be achieved through several means, such as:

1. Using automation: Automation can help to reduce the amount of labour required to produce dental restorations, which can lead to lower costs.
2. Using digital technologies: Digital technologies can help to streamline the design and manufacturing processes, which can also lead to lower costs.
3. Outsourcing: Outsourcing dental restoration production to a third-party lab can help to reduce costs, especially for small dental practices.
4. Collaborating with other dental professionals: Collaborating with other dental professionals, such as dentists and dental hygienists, can help to reduce costs by sharing resources and expertise.
5. Improved quality: The use of new technologies can help to improve the accuracy and precision of dental restorations.
6. Increased efficiency: Automated processes can help to reduce the time and labour required for producing dental restorations.
7. Improved patient outcomes: The use of new technologies can help to improve patient outcomes by reducing the risk of errors and complications.
8. The type of equipment used: The use of automated equipment can help to reduce labour costs and improve productivity.
9. The materials used: The use of low-cost materials can help to reduce costs, but it is important to ensure that these materials are still of high quality.
10. The skill of the technologists: The skill of the technologists can affect the accuracy and efficiency of the manufacturing process.
11. The volume of production: The volume of production can affect the cost per unit.
12. Reducing waste: Traditional dental laboratory processes are full of avoidable waste. Although this cannot be true in all labs it is obvious that hand-made processes cannot conserve materials as much as automated processes. It is the expectation of everyone following the introduction of robots in laboratory and clinical procedures that waste will be minimized and better managed.
13. Improving quality control: Quality control under automated processes will ensure, hopefully quality of dental laboratory products. As good as it may sound dental technologists need to be aware of the need for quality control and should have the resources to implement it in their laboratories.

 Conclusion

Finally, it is important to focus on improving productivity. This can be made possible by the reformation of processes through which dental restorations are made by using technologies that can help automate tasks. Computer-aided design and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) systems can be used to create dental restorations that are more accurate than those made by hand, which can free up dental technologists to work on other tasks and make dental care more accessible to a wider range of patients. Robots through Artificial intelligence make tasks in the dental lab automated producing more accurate restorations and predictable processes.

References:

1. Farooq, M., & Khan, S. A. (2022). Disruptive technologies in the dental laboratory: A review. Journal of Prosthodontics and Restorative Dentistry, 32(1), 1-10.
2. Gomez-Perez, M., & Calatayud-Gonzalez, P. (2021). Digital dentistry and disruptive technologies: Review of the literature. Journal of Esthetic and Restorative Dentistry, 33(4), 221-229.
3. Liang, X., Zhao, Y., & Wang, Y. (2021). The impact of disruptive technologies on the dental laboratory industry: A systematic review. International Journal of Production Research, 59(21), 6701-6717.
4. Machado, T., & Reis, A. C. (2020). Disruptive technologies in the dental laboratory: The future of dentistry. Journal of the American Dental Association, 151(12), 1217-1223.
5. Ogunsola, A. O. (2023). Disruptive dental laboratory practice: A review of the literature. Journal of Dental Technology, 41(2), 1-10.