How to counts Units...Need help :)

[nekka9]

I work for a Healthcare Organization in the NW, we have a dental lab that has traditionally counted cases one unit to build, one unit to finish etc.( I hope I am using the correct verbage) currently they do 12 units in porclein and 16 units in crown and bridge. OK here is the question, I am being told that in the community that harder cases are given a higher unit number. Is this true? And if so what is an example of industry standard. They are trying to raise the production of the lab and as their advocate I want to make sure we are comparing apple to apples in unit comparsion.

Thank you in advance for any information, the employees thank you too

Dannica

 

[Mark Jackson]

This may be some propriatary system of counting units, but typically, there are three systems that I am aware of for counting units in a production situation:

1) Units of time.

2) Units by piece. This is the most common method in crown and bridge. A unit is a single tooth. If a cermist is asked to "build" 12 units per day, they are layering porcelain on twelve single teeth. That by the way is less than half a days production for an experienced ceramist.

3) Units by task. This is an old system for production and billing of partial dentures. For example, a palatal bar was about two units, a clasp one unit, and a rest aquarter to half a unit. Distal extensions, with mesh were about one unit, and a cast horsehoe with retention was something like four units.

Hope that helps.

BTW, you might want to attend my "Production Standards" course at the NADL University in Denver next September. I do a half day introductory course and a full day in depth course for alumni. We cover this in DETAIL. FYI

 

[nekka9]

Thank you so much, that helps...I work in Optical, so it has been a learning curve for me to get the lingo down to help these folks.

 

[subrisi]

12 units is a half day production??????????
What the....
Sorry that is mass production to me and I do not want something like this in my mouth

 

[Mark Jackson]

12 units is a half day production??????????
What the....
Sorry that is mass production to me and I do not want something like this in my mouth

To build only. You should be able to build a single crown in 12 minutes. 12 minutes is a very reasonable time for stacking. Here, watch this. It's about 9 minutes for this one:

YouTube - Molar build up

If it takes you longer than this, I can only pray you charge by the hour and not by the unit!

 

[subrisi]

It depends what kind of crown and how many colors I use. I don't do 2 powder build up. To compensate, I charge more.

 

[Al.]

I have to agree with Mark on this one.

When I really get cranking I build between 5 to 7 units per hour, depending on how big they are like Bis vs molars vs laterals, that is with 5 powders and building the contours pretty exact and with anatomy built in.

I think it is reasonable for a experenced, builder only, to build 30 to 40 units a day that require minimal grinding and with color built in. I think 4 per hour is a bit on the slow side unless they are complicated builds.

I posted a thread on it here a couple of years ago.

 

[Al.]

Ok one thing I forgot, is 2nd bakes.

In a production lab where there are seperate builders and grinders.
When the grinders are bringing you back 20 and 30 units a day to make addons your production #s are going to drop like a rock.

Add ons can take 3 hours of the day.

I personally build everything one day uninterupted (pfms & layer emax) than the next day grind in and do 2nd bakes.

 

[nekka9]

Thanks for the information! In our lab we have tech that do start to finish, one of the arguments we had for not having different people do building and grinding, is that the quality would suffer and it like you stated, any changes needing to be done would drive production down. It seems that everywhere counts units based on the number of teeth they do, here they count every case as a unit not accounting for the complexity of the case. So Management wants to increase production by 50% 12(6 bulid 6 finish)to 18 units per day in porcelain. But I think the unit count is skewed.....

 

[nekka9]

I should have been more clear, not 12 a day but 12 units. They count a build as one unit and finish as one unit or 2 units per case. Unless its full gold then it counts as 2 and 1 unit.

 

[Mark Jackson]

So Management wants to increase production by 50% 12(6 bulid 6 finish)to 18 units per day in porcelain. But I think the unit count is skewed.....

It can be done easily, but they may need to look at the most efficient way to get there. They might want to change to press-to-metal, which will reduce ceramist time by about 80%, and shift the labor to lower paid technicians, while likely improving consistency.

They should also consider incentivizing them to increase production. Is the goal to increase production to lower cost, or to improve throughput? It should be managements goal to do BOTH, but it would help us to know their motives.

 

[nekka9]

They claim that our lab is not viable unless we increase productivity. They are threatening to close the lab and outsource. We have about 40 union employees, the employees believe that productivity can be increased but there is disagreement on unit count. Management uses numbers from the community and they are not matching how we currently count. I want to make sure we are comparing apples to apples

 

[nekka9]

Al,
Thanks for the information

 

[araucaria]

shift the labor to lower paid technicians.

velly good idea

 

[Mark Jackson]

They claim that our lab is not viable unless we increase productivity. They are threatening to close the lab and outsource. We have about 40 union employees, the employees believe that productivity can be increased but there is disagreement on unit count. Management uses numbers from the community and they are not matching how we currently count. I want to make sure we are comparing apples to apples

Well, you just explained everything to me.

The production numbers and techniques that have been discussed here are very reasonable, and if they can't pull that kind of production, they just may be in for the worste kind of awakening. Have you considered bringing in a thrid party to evaluate things? Sometime outsourcing ends up costing even more, so it's a shame to tear down an existing infrastructure that has gotten a little bloated.

I referee may be a good move before anything drastic is done.

 

[rkm rdt]

"They should also consider incentivizing them to increase production. Is the goal to increase production to lower cost, or to improve throughput? It should be managements goal to do BOTH, but it would help us to know their motives".

Why don't you get one of those big bull whips like Indianna Jones has and crack the ass meat that sticks out the back of their chairs!

Maybe you could borrow Doug's third leg and give them a boot in the arse when they don't produce.
Who needs Cad/Cam when you can use a weapon?

 

[Mark Jackson]

"They should also consider incentivizing them to increase production. Is the goal to increase production to lower cost, or to improve throughput? It should be managements goal to do BOTH, but it would help us to know their motives".

Why don't you get one of those big bull whips like Indianna Jones has and crack the ass meat that sticks out the back of their chairs!

Maybe you could borrow Doug's third leg and give them a boot in the arse when they don't produce.
Who needs Cad/Cam when you can use a weapon?

That's why we use incentives of a positive nature. Reward them for good behavior and you will have loyal, productive employees. Under the circumstances, I would think KEEPING YOUR JOB would be incentive enough, but a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down.

 

[Mark Jackson]

velly good idea

I meant waxers as opposed to ceramists, not Chinese as opposed to domestic.

 

[paulg100]

"In our lab we have tech that do start to finish, one of the arguments we had for not having different people do building and grinding, is that the quality would suffer"

It does!

In our production lab we have separate people to do the metal work start to finish and separate people to do the ceramics start to finish.

The problem is there on piece work so the metal guys bang out as much as possible without giving a crap about what the ceramic guys have to work on and the ceramic guys get left to sort the mess out which affects both quality and production and just wears the ceramists down. This is the way this has been for the past 30 years despite training, management meetings, staff meetings, incentive schemes etc etc etc.

If you reduce the units then the metal techs just take it easy and still the same problems continues.

How labs break it down even further eg. have one tech build then one tech cut in etc is beyond me.

I know your doing it and making it work but i just cant see how. In this example the guys must be building blocks of rocks as quick as possible for the poor grinders to have to hack to bits. either that or you employ someone to constantly watch over peoples shoulders.

oh and we also used the PTC training system for many years which was/is great, but it still doesn't stop human nature which is to bang the stuff out and get out the door. Apologies to the minority of people that are the exception to the rule.

 

[rkm rdt]

"That's why we use incentives of a positive nature. Reward them for good behavior and you will have loyal, productive employees."

...That's how we trained our Jack Russell.