Dental Asia May/June 2020

Dental Profile
ones. It has been an exciting path, and although not everything we
tried, worked; some worked better than we expected. Ultimately,
being agile – reacting quickly to the changing market requirements
– has been one of the keys to our success.
Mr. Savic: When zirconia came to the market, it was a cool material
that technicians wanted to work with. Since there was no other way
to work with it besides digital technology, the material became a
major push for digital. Milling machines have also become small yet
still extremely precise, and intraoral scanners have advanced; the
next wave will be 3D printing. It’s a privilege to be a part of these
innovations.
Mr. Savic: Within dentistry, dentures are the last to be digitised. For
the 95% of labs that are still producing them the analogue way,
the potential to improve the process and save costs is huge. Also,
today, when you print dentures, they look natural; the function and
fit are also amazing. Minimal post-processing is needed – you just
need to remove the supports, and glue and glaze them.
Mr. Steinbrecher: We expect the adoption of CAD/CAM technology
for removables to be much quicker than it was for fixed prosthetics,
simply because scanners and 3D printers are already available in
labs. Even if they aren’t, they are not nearly as expensive as the
first milling machines, 15 years ago.
The latest version of exocad, DentalCAD Plovdiv, has an
enhanced FullDenture module that allows the designing of
dentures in a guided digital workflow. How has the feedback
been so far from users?
Mr. Steinbrecher: It’s been very positive. Customers have been
asking for the ability to produce dentures digitally for some
time now. With the Plovdiv release, our customers have now the
maximum choice of production methods. You could print or mill the
base and teeth, use tooth cards, or combine these options. Another
request is the ability to create single-arch dentures, which we have
added in the Plovdiv release. For partial dentures, as opposed to
just producing the framework, we are now also able to digitally
produce the teeth and the gingiva. As well, the availability of tooth
libraries has been greatly expanded.
exocad is valued for its open platform and integration with
scanners and CAM solutions. How did exocad identify this focus
to help machines “talk to one another”?
Mr. Steinbrecher: If you look at different markets, the more mature
a technology market gets, the stronger the trend it goes in the
direction of open architecture software.
Let’s talk about home computers. In the 1980s, each computer
manufacturer had their own operating systems. Today, with
the exception of Apple, everything runs on Microsoft Windows.
And if you look at cell phones, 10 years ago, companies like
Nokia, Blackberry or Samsung had their own operating systems.
Nowadays, again with the exception of Apple, everything runs on
Android. So, we see this clear trend that in the more mature market,
the open platform software solutions are those that prevail.
Mr. Savic: It is a complex endeavour to integrate just one scanner
or one milling machine with the software. But it is a completely
different matter to integrate 20 different scanners with 10 different
milling or printing machines. It is unique how the exocad team does
this with the variety of scanners and production machines.
Could you share some areas where you are most proud of
overcoming - software, hardware, or material challenges - to
achieve integrated workflows?
Mr. Steinbrecher: I personally think that the most challenging
integrations were the ones for clinical products. Compared to
dental technicians, clinicians have even higher expectations for
integration, simply because they just don’t want to deal with
technical problems.
Novica Savic
This is why we spend a lot of time making sure that when we
integrate an intraoral scanner, milling machine, or printer with our
platform, the workflow is complete, smooth, and trouble-free. To
be honest, that’s pretty challenging. Especially when you do it with
such a great variety of products. But we’ve learned to be good at it.
MAY / JUNE 2020 DENTAL ASIA 29