Outsourcing at its best!

[kyleyounggun]

Look at this website.

Dental Laboratory Concepts - Product List

Not a bad product list. Until you see the flyer that just came in my mailbox....

There is no way to produce these prices without outsourcing or if you own the raw material processing. In volume that is.

Look at what I got...let me know what you think...




sorry for the big pictures :/

 

[DMC]

I throw their mailer into the trash every day! LOL

Been getting these for years and years....almost every single day!

I'm going to start calling them and playing pranks on them. I'll try to record some....

Why not?

 

[eyeloveteeth]

5 day c&b refers to upon receiving the case. Where ever they are sourcing it....so...for sake of argument,

if it's in Hong Kong - you send monday - arrive Thursday (4 days) unless you pay extra for expedite service. and then tack on a day post receipt and then a day when YOU get the case back.

5 + 5 + 5 = 15. Not including issues for fit and redos which is another 11 days at best.

Now this doesn't even mention anything about quality and what it is. Great if you only care about price, - a huge gamble if you actually want good work. haha

It's totally possible that they are good, anyone wanna try em out? TOFTT?

 

[Tom Moore]

99% of our work sent direct is five or six days on the turn. That means if I get it on Monday we send on Tuesday and it gets to me the following Tuesday or Wednesday. In the first FedEx ring its a day to us and a day getting back to the dentist and I offset the price of shipping from and to my dentist. If a dentist cuts it in Monday he will have no problem setting the seat Monday two weeks. That using airplanes and trucks.

That's about to become obsolete. The dentist can now scan the impression on Monday and it gets to the lab in China that day and is ready to go out the door on Tuesday or Wednesday. The case picks up 12 hours coming this way and will be in the dental office by Friday latest.

Labs in China are not different that labs anywhere. Some good, some not so good. There must be some that can get the job done or they would not have 38% of the domestic lab in dusty.

This is the way the shipping usually works. Sent this a 4:30 pm on the 3rd and they got it in the 7th before 8 am their time.

Shipment Dates
Ship date Jan 3, 2012
Delivery date Jan 7, 2012 7:03 AM
Destination
LANTAU ISLAND HKProof of Delivery
Shipment Facts Help Service type International Priority Service

Box came back yesterday that was shipped at 6pm their time on the 6th and got here yesterday before 10:30.

The prices on this flyer appear to be dentists prices. Most are way to high to be lab to lab.

 

[cheadlemick]

Here is another one in the UK.No surprise its a dentist in charge!




Private PFM Crown only £29.95
e-Max Crowns only £49.95
The most cost effective private laboratory in the UK Cheaper than most NHS laboratories.
Your restorations are made in one of the most accredited facilities in the world, holding the following quality markers:

We at BDS Laboratory are proud to be working with one of the largest and most reputable international dental conglomerations in the world, with affiliations extending to the USA, Europe and Pacific Asia. We are dedicated to providing restorations of a superior, private quality at reasonable prices. Our board of directors is made up of both dentists and technicians to ensure our service is tailored to best meet the needs of you – our valued customer.

Our unique selling points are quality and customer service. Using ISO 9001:2000 and DAMAS accredited manufacturing processes, with rigorous in house quality control by GDC registered technicians, we ensure that our products are of a consistently high quality. In addition, you will always have direct phone and email access to our Chief Technician and Operations Director to discuss any aspect of our work or service.

In short, we are genuinely here to help - our promise to you is simple and direct, we will provide you with private restorations at NHS prices. Here at BDS, our professional team is dedicated to nobility, providing only excellence in customer service, quality in our restorations and efficiency in delivery.

Value to our Customers
is Guaranteed.
Your restorations are fabricated in a laboratory working with some of the biggest names in the dental profession internationally:

SEND US A CASE TODAY
Call: Paul Perkins: 07969 963 941 Georgina: 0845 862 7333
or email us [email protected]

B2. 15, Tameside Business Park, Windmill Lane, Denton, Manchester M34 3QS
BDS Laboratory | Private restorations at NHS prices

 

[Tom Moore]

If I form a new account I can use that to post my fliers as long as I make disparaging remarks and make fun of them. How about if I send them to you guys and you can do that for me?

 

[paulg100]

yeah i got that to Mick, what a joke.

I did consider sending them an email to thank them for helping to drive the UK lab industry into the ground, but decided there not worth my time.

Just another parasite.

 

[wilkscm]

looked at bds lab website both the wankers running this lab have never really worked in a proper dental lab. if you want cheap no need to send to china my mate in Bristol does it cheaper than this
Chris

 

[Tom Moore]

Are these people keeping the patient and dentist from getting what they want from the lab industry and thus harming the lab industry or are they harming your way of making a living in the lab industry? Should your way of making a living in the lab industry trump the needs and wants of the patients and dentists ?

Should the CEO of Ford need to have been on the assembly line to run the company?

 

[Mark Jackson]

looked at bds lab website both the wankers running this lab have never really worked in a proper dental lab. if you want cheap no need to send to china my mate in Bristol does it cheaper than this
Chris

This lab is owned by a lab owner with a couple hundred employees in the US, and formerly had a big lab in the phillipines. He's not an incompetent competitior.

 

[cheadlemick]

yeah i got that to Mick, what a joke.

I did consider sending them an email to thank them for helping to drive the UK lab industry into the ground, but decided there not worth my time.

Just another parasite.

The problem as i see it Paul is that its being financed by a dentist and aided and abetted by a technician who was one of a certain Manchester lab owner cronies who uses China, however i know 1st Dental have a China outlet so they are probably competing with them and others like them. I've said it earlier when there is no lab industry left the chinese and others will just put their prices up!

 

[cheadlemick]

looked at bds lab website both the wankers running this lab have never really worked in a proper dental lab. if you want cheap no need to send to china my mate in Bristol does it cheaper than this
Chris

Hi Wilks your dead right i know one of them and hes a right c*** but money is the only thing that motivates these people!

 

[cheadlemick]

Are these people keeping the patient and dentist from getting what they want from the lab industry and thus harming the lab industry or are they harming your way of making a living in the lab industry? Should your way of making a living in the lab industry trump the needs and wants of the patients and dentists ?

Should the CEO of Ford need to have been on the assembly line to run the company?

Tom I havent got a problem with a free market but it isn't a level playing field but
we are all patients and have a right to to know where the work is produced, look at the breast implant scandal in Europe. Do the patients know the dentist is trousering more profit because of the low prices! In the UK we have a thing called MHRA look it up, the Chinese labs cant be registered because they are arent member states of the EU! I'm not having a pop here btw i've been a tech for 40 years and look at the changes its sad how things are turning out because in the UK we thought we were getting somewhere as we are now recognised as a profession but it means nothing!

 

[Tom Moore]

It about the money.....its always about the money. The balance point between supply and demand set the price and we must learn to operate very close to that point if we are to stay in business

There was a small boy watching TV and his dad walked up and thumped him on the head. The little boy said, I haven't done anything wrong so why did you do that? Dad told him he just was given one of the most important lesson of life. LIFE IS NOT FAIR GET OVER IT!

 

[corona]

life is not fair ???

life is not fair . life is not fair ? isnt it people who do that ... make life better or worse . the perspective of anything being fair can be challenged on many fronts but i think that lab techs who care ...i mean really care about this craft and trade see it being erased as we live and breath . I care . I care about the craftsmanship and the tech's artistic mind to hand dexterity abilities . When i enrolled in school ... i was told i needed to have artistic abilities and to work well with my hands . There was no speak of digital , automated , and outsourcing/broker whoring that was later to be revolutionized . We just didnt know .. i just didnt know . Our industry has changed .... not for the artisan... but for the stamped out digital libraries , the cads and the cams , the cheap labor..... by the way ... what came first ... the cheap labor or the fda ? Some people have adapted well . I have tried ...i am trying .... but the more automated it goes the less artistic it feels . I see posts and great pics of work done that i know who ever did it has great pride in what they did and i dig how they explain where every nuance went and how they envisioned something from nothing . To change a patients life . To help a patient eat better, smile more confidently, and possibly enrich their lives more . I see the validation in fda for patients safety and satifaction . I just dont see the total picture where a tech in china or another country makes substantially less than a tech in the u.s. . Is that life making it unfair ? Or are we just evolving ?

 

[Tom Moore]

I know it must be harder and harder for techs to use their artistic abilities in an industry where it seems less appreciated every day among customers that are just not willing to pay much extra for the added ability of a tech/artists.

Should the customer be forced to buy the artists work even if they feel its not necessary for their practice?

I just don't see an easy answer to how those here now will fair in the coming years in the lab industry without a bunch of sometimes painful changes.

 

[corona]

how to evolve

so you seem to have done it ... how did you do it ? why did you do it ? who mentored you in the tranformation? Does sending crowns to your clients made by someone else feel the same when you were making them in your lab ?

 

[rkm rdt]

"but the more automated it goes the less artistic it feels ."

You sound like a blacksmith watching everyone in their horeseless carriages pass by your door.

 

[sampson]

i am a UK trained tech with over 15 years experience in ceramics and dentures.
Adapt and change- is what i have had to do - Ive got tired of being asked to match my prices to a China based lab or to one of my untrained/ unqualified competitors and now Ive decided to offer my services as a denturist -

yes i know many of you cant do this but my island recently passed new legislation regarding allied health workers - (including denturists or clinical dental tecs.)
I can now deal direct with patients - and can legally offer my denture services at a reduction of the previous prices making the patients and ME happier.
As a result i no longer feel used and taken advantage of by dentists.

My policy over the years has had to change with the times - at first i didn't deal direct with patients and referred them on to their dentist for dentures.
However i learned over the years that many of the dentists would then ask a unqualified/ cheaper technician to handle their work at his lab.- impressions, try ins, fitting the appliances ect-
This tech has done well out of this arrangement ( good for him ) - so well that he has now hired 2 young dentists to work for him in a clinic he has set up-
Now the other dentists are complaining and reporting the tech to the allied health council and saying hes not trained to deal with patients ect.

The point of my tirade is that dentists on the whole will go to the cheaper prices,especially the new ones coming out of dental school who are doing less and less lab work- most of them only care that the appliance - fits, has an acceptable color and the morphology kinda looks OK.
this further opens the door to work being sent to China and other offshore labs
- i have seen some work from these off shore labs and it looks great so i expect it to continue.

As Tom wrote" life is not fair get over it"

 

[Tom Moore]

so you seem to have done it ... how did you do it ? why did you do it ? who mentored you in the transformation? Does sending crowns to your clients made by someone else feel the same when you were making them in your lab ?

I'm not an artist. I used good hand eye and a lean toward the mechanical side of what we do to make crowns. The mechanics of teeth is interesting to me and always seemed like more a system than needed fixing but I spent the money and time to be able to make crowns with all the nuances of little color variations. I found most didn't care and they sure were not willing to pay me for it.

I was at a point where many of my long time accounts were at retirement age and encountered a very different mind set in younger dentist about who we are and what we do.

Selling and not at production has worked out great for me. It has lengthened my career past what it would have been using my hands and eyes to make a living and provided me with an easily sell-able lab business when I've had enough.

I had almost no one to show me the way and I made some big mistakes alone the way. Its not for most and I guess I should be glad it is that way. Makes what I do much easier.