You sound like a youngster.
Not a bad thing. Really fun to learn. Your in one of the best places for this type of business. Good idea to sharpen your appliance skills. better idea to sharpen your "people" skills and build the lab to a huge size. Easy where you are located. Problem is, employees.
Appliance design types and ideas will come to you over time. Best place to see what is "cutting edge"??? PCSO and AAO exhibitor areas. If you can attend a meeting as an exhibitor, that's the best. You can take a little time to "cruise" the other booths and tables. That is more valuable than any book. Thing is, new "appliances" are mostly therer to stimulate new busniess for a lab. So....GL or AOA, or you name it, will have some new "spiffy goody" to enhance interst on different levels. Bottom line being, new clients. They try out the " spiffy goody", then the lab can net some general retainer business form them. Genereal retainer business is the bread and butter of a Ortho lab. The "spiffy goody" end comes and goes. Some of those appliances are costly to produce ( herbst) etc for a small lab. Less expensive if you can purcase, lets say, herbst hardware in lots of 50 or so.
Bionators, Twin blocks and the like provide an excellent profit margin if you become capable of production. Hardware for them is easy to afford.
Also the typical functional can take a while to become "easy' to produce. The ones that cost a lot for hardware may become easy, but, the over head is to high.
If you can find the time, talk to your Drs, find one that will get you in a PCSO 1 day meeting, or a AAO as an employee. They can say "John is my lab man" and get you a pass to attend. You will ove those meetings, just go out and "graze".
