After lots of hard work to be able to buy and use the best technology why should I care much for labs that sell products to my competition they can't afford themselves keeping them in busniss.
Seems those that can afford the technology should sell it directly to the dentist. Those that can't should be forced to buy a boat and fish or cut bait on some other guys boat?
Are there really that many labs that consist of a plaster bench a scanner and a staining oven. Hows that going to last very long?
This should stir the chili.
it would help if you see dentists and other labs as "clients" instead of "competition" because the sooner you realize that offering labs cheaper crowns equals high volume super busy always working superlab, the sooner you can begin marching in on them as competition. quickest way to get bought by someone even bigger than you, too.
don't you want to retire early ?
what is this "technology" that dentists can afford but labs can't ? what is this technology that equals a whole lab replacement? you are kidding yourself if you think a piddly pile of cash buys the kind of equipment that cuts an entire lab out of the picture. anyone can set up an outsourcing milling center; far far fewer are the able bodies to turn chalk white crumbly piles of dust into anything i'd have put in my mouth.
there really arent many milling centers that offer themselves as full service either.
i did the math the other day (in canadain dollars) it would cost about 3.5million to startup a milling/printing center to pump out zirconia, and resin prints and ti bars alone. 3.5m for unfinished substrate coming out of 1 printer, 1 zirconia mill and 1 titanium mill. the biggest part of that startup of course is the floor space - which again i figure at around 900 sq ft to work comfortably. business space and legal costs, permits, and periphery to keep machines going (like compressor, support remover, zirc dip and oven, printer resin, and software) should bring the meager 480k equipment sticker up to 3.5m but can be as low as 1m if you buy property in a sub prime location at a grossly undervalued mortgage.
now, if you want to start adding finishing work to anything coming out of those machines, add 1m.
you want to tell me any old dentist that wants to cut out a lab can look at a dwx50 and think - yeah 30grand that seems like a reasonable facsimile of the entire services of the lab that's overcharging me for zirconia.
lol