New inLab MC 5-Axis "Open" Mill

[Mohammad Khair]

Mohamed, I love your thought process. However, Cerec is showing up in many average Dental practices. I would guess the average dentist works four day week and does one unit a day possibly a little more. So, let's say the production is more like 20 units a month less the four weeks vacation or 220 a yr. Cerec cost about $125 K and the doc needs significent continuing Ed to get it right, $25K more in Arazona. Now let's look at what the real ROI would look like.
Cost of system. $125k
Education $25k
Create inventory of blocks, coolant and tools $10K
Total up front investmet $160K
Over five years this will cost about $2800 a month.

Now let's look at the cost per unit.
Block $32
Tools $4
Labor $0 (let's say the labor is similar to making the temp even though it's likely more).
Net materials and labor $36.

Your average doc that does 20 units a month times 11 months will be paying $162 a unit for the lease plus $36 for material.
BOTTOM LINE $198 ($0 labor) a unit plus the headaches of inventory, cost of obsolete inventory, education, maintaince and the need to keep producing to pay for the mill. In addition, Sirona is constantly developing new better?? Scanners and mills resulting in continued reinvestment of revinue into the system.
Obviously the more work put through the mill the lower the unit cost. In addition, Cerec grinds on glass and many ceramic units have chipped margins coming out of the mill. Most docs don't glaze the work, just mill and posilish. Are they really providing a lab like restoration? Do they need to? On the other hand, I do get the benifit of a crown in one appointment. I know I am constantly busy and if I needed a crown I would love to take care of it in one apt. That said, we, as lab people need to offer a crown in a day.
I have attempted to be as non bias as possible here. If there is a cerec doc out there and you figure it differently please pipe in.

Fair enough, we both actually have different point of view, but i think the two views are very close too.
The doc are charging more to deliver the crown in the very same appointment and that will reduce the time to cover the system price, otherwise the doc is wasting his/her time to do the lab job for no real return, and that's simply why the system is only good for urgent cases who are willing to bay real more.
You would really be surprised if you see those unglazed feldspar or glass restorations in the patient mouth after only a few month, they will look like nearly vmk68 opaque mixed with porcelain and fired without metal, even glazing them the color and translucency wont survive for more than few years, less than 5 years in most cases, however the new generation of the materials may be a little improved, a huge different in quality between the lab made restorations and those made of feldspar or glass.

 

[rc75]

This mill does exist it's retailing in the low $60k's and is wet/dry. I have pictures from the Cad/Cam Syposium show I will post them later when I get a chance.

 

[rc75]

If anyone cares here's the new Sirona puck mill at the California Garden Grove Cad/Cam Syposium from this past weekend...

 

[labtek]

If anyone cares here's the new Sirona puck mill at the California Garden Grove Cad/Cam Syposium from this past weekend...

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Did anyone here attend the Sirona Dental Inlab Summit in Charlotte??? How was the reaction to the new MCx5 milling machine. The videos online make it look and sound like the next best thing? Is it?

 

[Marcusthegladiator CDT]

This is my favorite paragraph. What a croc of crap.....

inLab MC X5, the five-axis milling and grinding unit newly developed especially for the demands of dental laboratories, completes Sirona's inLab system. Dental technicians benefit from the greatest flexibility for the entire production process of esthetically pleasing restorations and the largest selection of materials available on the market.

"A goldmine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top." -Mark Twain

 

[RileyS]

You will not lose any of your customers, actually cerec in clinic make the doc to appreciate more the efforts, the time, and the experience of their labs, and help them to be a little more professional and that help us too.
cerec will never ever be an alternative or a competitor of a the dental lab.
simply because it needs time, experience and responsibility which is very hard to be offered by the doc,
most of those systems are just for urgent simple cases, and lay away all the year long when the doc is busy( which is always happened to be the case).
all of my old big customers are in fact a professional cerec owners.
sirona realize that and focus more and more in the dental labs.

Just had to mention again that this is completely stupid. Been wondering why the last two weeks I haven't had any cases from a client. Planned today to go visit him. Just saw on facebook that he bought a Cerec. Now...I'm searching my thesaurus to find a different word for "alternative or competitor." Screw it, I just got competitorized! It tickles!
Guess I'll go in for a visit Monday to set up cerec connect with him if he wants to, eh.
Please pass on more of your wisdom to help me with the transition, Mo.

 

[charles007]

Don't think Mo can be of any help, he lives in another world when it comes to Cerec.
Bob had a great idea, add a one day crown to our Menu. This is a great idea to head off docs with the idea of milling inhouse.......
How do I do that with just a scanner $$$ a wet mill
What do labs do without a scanner..

 

[RileyS]

Yeah not really looking for his help. Just being sarcastic

 

[rkm rdt]

Nothing wrong with a good Friday "snark".

 

[McTeeth]

I don't believe the economics are there anyways long term. Its a bad business decision to go Cerec, UNLESS, you have a low-paid in-house assistant basically running the operation. Dentist labor is the most expensive. The opportunity cost is too expensive as a Dentist can make more money doing dentistry creating revenue, than saving on input costs into his restorations after you factor in all the inputs for the Cerec.
As the prices of restorations decrease due to increased productivity in Labs, this margin of any illusion of profit will diminish more for the Dentist.

As time goes by, the "Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility" will increase and the Cerec will start to collect dust...again...as the effort put "in" is outweighs the return.

Just my $0.02

 

[Tad Philip]

The MC X5 is a sweet looking Mill.. Has anyone tried one out?

 

[Marcusthegladiator CDT]

The MC X5 is a sweet looking Mill.. Has anyone tried one out?

 

[BobCDT]

I saw it in Japan in November. I can't immagine a lab buying it. All the Patterson reps are going into our customers office and telling them to buy Cerec and eliminate your lab bill.

 

[cadfan]

Why buying a mill from guys that kicked you in the a... in the past only while their grow strategie is at the limit and they remind you !!!!

 

[Mark Blyumin]

The MC X5 is a sweet looking Mill.. Has anyone tried one out?

I am getting it this month or in the beginning of January. I will tell you all about it. From what I know it is very impressive.
Tremendous accuracy.

 

[TheLabGuy]

I saw it in Japan in November. I can't immagine a lab buying it. All the Patterson reps are going into our customers office and telling them to buy Cerec and eliminate your lab bill.

They are still doing this? Patterson has done this in the past and I even spoke to some Sirona execs. about it and they said they put an immediate stop to it...grrrr.

 

[2thm8kr]

They are still doing this? Patterson has done this in the past and I even spoke to some Sirona execs. about it and they said they put an immediate stop to it...grrrr.

Yeah, you can trust anything Sirona says.

 

[Mark Blyumin]

I think that Sirona is moving away from producing mills for docs. Only small amount of them really use the mills. The cost of materials and time they need to produce, in my view, a temporary restoration, is much more then sending the file to a lab using Cerec Connect. With new MCX5 mill capabilities all the problems that we had with previous Sirona mills are no longer a factor. Plus we can mill for any other lab or an other dental office using STL files. It is open platform now.
What is the factor is that Sirona built a largest digital dentist to labs network.

 

[Tad Philip]

Agreed about the dislike for Sirona(the Evil Empire) But, in MT where I live a few have bought Sirona/Cerec scanners & inLabs and most are (trying to sell) them. Sirona/Cerec have bad rep around here. The bigger buzz around here is Trios!!! I am trying to work with 3 Shapes rep. to put on a demo/lunch for all the Docs to come see the future on digital restorations & modeless dentistry. They think Intraoral scanners don't work like in the past. Nobody wants stuck 150k paper weight. Trying open doors in the North West.

As for MC X5 milling we are looking for options to mill wet with accuracy and no frayed margins like some other cheaper wet mills can do.Top

 

[Mark Blyumin]

Exocad can import and open Trios files and then mill with MCX5. Am I correct?