Quality comes first – Craig Howlin
Featured Products Promotional FeaturesPosted by: Dental Design 10th November 2018
Working with high quality products is an easy way to ensure that you are providing optimal patient care. So is your laboratory doing the best they can to ensure quality standards are met?
Quality assurance processes
Quality control methods can help to indicate standards. Laboratories should have good quality assurance processes in place, as these help to guarantee that only the best fabrications make the final cut.
Good examples of these processes will include quality assurance checks, identification of issues and a strategy for resolving problems and making changes to ensure that similar issues do not arise again.[i]
Laboratories with good quality assurance processes in place will make regular checks and examine a significant proportion of units fabricated so they are consistently aware of the general standard of product produced. All products should go through a final check and any imperfect pieces or mistakes completely discarded. In ideal scenarios there should also be checks throughout various stages of the manufacturing process.
Certified materials
Another aspect worth exploring with your laboratory is the materials used to make the requested products. There is a diverse selection of products out there, and all of these will have certain strengths and weaknesses. Technicians should be able to tell you exactly what products they use for each of the services they provide you, and from there you can check to see whether these products are certified by researching them online or contacting the brand directly.
A talented workforce
A laboratory may have state-of-the-art technology and the best quality materials available, but if the technicians aren’t skilled at their trade than these are effectively superfluous. Laboratory technicians should be sufficiently qualified and capable of making restorations without error.
It is wise for dentists to go to their laboratory and meet the technicians in person to find out more about them. By doing so you can discover what their skills and professional interests are and what courses they have been on, as well as see first-hand the quality of restorations and appliances that they are able to create.
Find a lab that does it all
With these areas in mind, it’s definitely worthwhile comparing available laboratories if you feel like you aren’t getting the quality you need.
Holding quality at the heart of all it does, Sparkle Dental Labs uses only the best brands to ensure that all products are of the highest calibre. Strict quality controls are in place throughout the business, and by concentrating on the skills of the team, the materials they use and keeping up to date with the latest technology, Sparkle Dental Labs has welcomed a new era of excellence.
Up to standard
A laboratory should always hold quality as one of its core concerns so that dentists receive the best product possible. By evaluating your chosen laboratory’s approach to quality you can see if they are living up to the necessary standards.
For more information, contact Sparkle Dental Labs on 0800 138 6255, or visit www.sparkledentallabs.com
[i]Poorterman, J., Van Weert, C., Eljkman, M. Quality Assurance in Dentistry: The Dutch Approach. International journal for quality in health care. 1998; 10(4): 345-350.
Author: Craig qualified in 1990 with distinctions in his City and Guilds, and formed one of the largest dental laboratory in the UKAfter trading successfully for 10 years Craig left the industry for a period of 12 months. Where he opened a Private Dental Practice.After which time he decided once again to return to the Dental laboratory world. He bought SB Dental and over the next few years by hard work and acquisitions of some well known smaller laboratories Craig became once again one of the largest laboratories in the UKCraig then saw an opportunity to go into partnership with Mustafa and Sparkle Dental Laboratory and is now the 2nd largest laboratory in the UK.The amalgamation of SB and Sparkle plus the close association with Bolton university has made Sparkle a major player in the UK market.Partnerships with Henry Schein, Renishaw, DMG and Straumann has brought the most advanced technology to the laboratory.Laser sintering, resin printing, cad/cam design are the forefront of Sparkles business future plans.
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