The cutting-edge new products and services from CAP

Rob Nazzal answers 10 questions about where his company is and where it's going.

Custom Automated Prosthetics (CAP) has had an explosive year of growth already. They've introduced countless new product offerings, expanded their offices and have developed new partnerships that have made waves around the dental lab market.

We recently spoke with Rob Nazzal, CEO of CAP, about some of those recent partner agreements, what it means for their customers and what we can expect to see from CAP for the remainder of the year.

01. CAP just agreed to a big partnership with Amann Girrbach. How did that come about?

Amann Girrbach basically came to us and said “we see that we have a lot of similar philosophies on the in-house movement,” meaning both CAP and Amann Girrbach see that dental technologies are ripe to bring in-house in an economical and logistical sense. A lot of it too is that Amann Girrbach saw the way we do things in a style they like as well. We’ve always had a lot of respect for them as a high-quality company, and we’ve known them for long time.

02. What are the parameters of the arrangement? What is CAP taking over for Amann Girrbach?

Amann Girrbach (AG) is basically working with us to strengthen their position in the U.S. They’re working a lot in this market—like a lot of our manufacturers—to bring products to the market; we’re taking care of sales and first line support. AG stands behind us with anything that’s a level-two (or higher) type of issue. Our customers still have access to AG support staff--and many of the support team members are spending time with us at CAP and we’ve gotten quite a bit up to speed. It’s working nicely and we’re working together with a level of commitment that I think is fantastic.

03. Why did you choose to partner with AG?

We started at the core with our mission. CAP’s view of its job is to help labs thrive. With that comes providing labs with solutions that we know work for them--solutions that have real return on investment, deliver high quality results and are backed by a support team that will help customers know the investment they’re making is a great investment. When we looked at the AG product line we saw that it fits really well into that mission.

04. What products do they have that you were excited about?

From a products standpoint, there’s some new and exciting things coming from AG. There’s the Motion 2 mill of course, but the new custom abutment solutions with that mill are very neat. A lab can mill a custom abutment in house with a milling machine that has so much versatility in terms of wet and dry; they can do zirconia and e.max and a custom abutment in the same mill. It was built with the same level of care and quality the other products we’ve known from AG have demonstrated in the digital world. 

05. What new products and services are you able to offer to your customers?

We are able to offer the complete AG product line, so there is a classic line of products around model management. On the CAD/CAM side, we have the Map400 and the Motion 2 mill, and the Ceramill Mikro milling machine, an exciting new 4-axis dry mill, is coming out. And then we offer the new features of the Motion 2, one of which is the custom abutment module. Customers can add on to mills they’ve already bought, so they don’t have to buy a new mill, just new modules. We have all the new materials and consumables that AG offers as well.

06. What changes can existing AG customers expect to see?

They’ll still have access to everything they had before, but now they’ve got access to our support team too. So we’ve enlarged the support. And one new thing is that we have the ability to do backup milling for customers--we have the Motion 2 mill in our milling center, so we can do that for them if they need us to.

07. What changes can CAP customers expect to see?

I keep going back to this theme of choice. They now have access through the CAP family to another product offering that, as their needs evolve in the future, provides a whole new series of equipment. We’re also expanding our classic products line with a new GC America partnership, and we’re bringing in all of their lab products. The idea is we really want to be able to service the customer needs. Before that used to just mean hardware/software/materials but labs need more than that, and we want to be able to deliver high quality products and brand names that our customers need.

08. What advantages do you think this agreement brings to the lab market?

I think in a lot of ways, CAP has a strong relationship with a good portion of the lab community. I’ve been in software/hardware businesses in the past where the sales process is kind of biased toward where you sell what you have. I don’t love that! The customer has to put up their guard and say, “is this really the best thing for me?” We really want to provide the best thing for the customer. It’s this Golden Rule philosophy that I try to bring to the company. How would I want to buy something? I want to buy something that fits my needs and will help me. Choice is the most exciting thing for all of us in this process. AG and CAP and the market will all benefit in this way.  

09. What else is new at CAP?

We have a super translucent zirconia, cubeX2 cubic zirconia and our CAPZilla management software. We have also recently also partnered with Stratasys as our 3D printing partner, and we’re starting to ramp that up and we’ll be selling the model and surgical guide 3D printers. We’re going to be announcing a new zirconia line called Z-complete that’s a little bit more economical, and has a complete shade line as well. When we started in 2010, we offered three products, and now we have over 2,000!

10. Anything else you’d like to add?

I recently got to go visit the Amann Girrbach factory, and one thing really stood out to me. There was a gentleman working on the arm of the door of a mill, and the way that this guy was caring for the door was amazing. It was an eye opener for me to see how much they make in house and how much goes into the quality. It really fits in well to our product line. CAP’s goal isn’t to provide every product on the market but to provide customers with options based on the needs of the lab. It’s sort of like: When you go into a Honda dealership, the salesperson is going try to sell you a Honda, they’re not going to say “given your needs, here’s the best car for you, and it’s not a Honda.” CAP doesn’t want to be that--we want to give people a choice in a select group of products and we can adjust that to fit their needs the best. It’s hard to achieve in this industry, but we’re very excited we can do this