Innovator Profile: Amann Girrbach America

Innovation drives our profession and DLP wants to recognize the companies at the forefront.  In this Innovator Profile, DLP spoke with Ramon Flores, Senior Product Specialist at Amann Girrbach America, about their start-to-finish workflow.

Q: Over the past few years, Amann Girrbach America has introduced a number of innovative products into the Ceramill line. What are your latest entries into this exciting line?

A: In recent months, we’ve unveiled several new combinations of materials and software expansion modules that are helping Ceramill users to open new revenue streams and increase profitability.
This includes Ceramill M-Plant, which allows laboratories to create custom hybrid abutments and screw-retained bridges using Ceramill Zolid translucent zirconia and Ceramill Ti-Forms titanium abutment blanks. There is also Ceramill M-Bar, which enables technicians to design and produce screw-retained passive bars on conical titanium bases using Ceramill Sintron millable chrome cobalt. And with Ceramill M-Splint, users can design and fabricate individual therapeutic splints from PMMA blanks, including Ceramill Splintec.
Another exciting development has been the launch of Ceramill IOS, which is our new process for seamlessly integrating Ceramill design software and milling units with third-party intraoral scanners. This will enable Ceramill-equipped labs to deliver even higher levels of speed, precision and convenience to their customers who supply digital files generated by some of the most widely used intraoral scanners.

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Q: How does the Ceramill workflow help the lab from start to finish?

A: The Ceramill system is fully integrated-from model management products all the way through materials-which dramatically increases the technician’s ability to produce precise, functional restorations. The Ceramill Artex® virtual articulator, for example, allows technicians to input values from the physical Artex® articulator into the Ceramill Mind software, ensuring a precise transition from the analog to digital model.

The Ceramill system is also built around traditional laboratory workflows, which gives technicians the same levels of control they would have in a non-digital environment. Ceramill doesn’t take technicians out of the process in order to simplify the system for non-lab settings, and it doesn’t require them to learn a new way of working.

Q: You’ve launched some new materials for the Ceramill system, including Ceramill Sintron. What makes Sintron a unique product?

A: Ceramill Sintron® is revolutionizing non-precious restorations by allowing technicians to fabricate non-precious crowns and bridges using Ceramill’s Motion 2 desktop mill, and then bring them to their final state in the Ceramill Argotherm® sintering furnace.

Click here to keep reading about how Amann Girrbach America helps support and educate labs.

Q: How does Amann Girrbach America support and educate labs that invest in the Ceramill system?

A: Drawing on our 100-year combined history of service to dental laboratories, our support begins even before a laboratory becomes a Ceramill user. We take a consultative approach during the sales process, working to understand a laboratory’s specific situation today, and also how that situation might change in the future. Then we pull from our robust equipment, materials, and support portfolio to craft a unique solution tailored specifically to their needs. Once we deliver the system that meets these needs, we back it up with an industry-leading program of initial and ongoing hands-on software and processing training, workflow analyses, and continuing service and support.

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Q: What can we look forward to from Amann Girrbach America in the rest of 2014 and into 2015?

A: In addition to new products and materials, we will also continue to expand the scope of our continuing education and training programs. We will be adding new course topics and will also be making it easier for technicians and lab owners all over the country to participate in these programs. That will include expanding our online course offerings, and also adding new regional training centers, where participants can attend hands-on Ceramill workshops in their own area.

Featured Brands

Ceramill Map400

The Map400 is a fully automatic, compact, open architecture digital scanner with highly sensitive, accurate (<20 µm) 3D sensors; a wide angle measuring field for the largest restorations; and just two axes to reduce scan times of full arches and articulated casts.

Ceramill Mind Software

The Ceramill Mind CAD software is the brain of the Ceramill System. The system software provides time-saving, intuitive processes, and features an open architecture platform that allows labs to work with other existing open hardware or software.

Ceramill Motion 2

The Ceramill Motion 2 is a compact, upgradable, hybrid dental CNC machine combining five-axis simultaneous milling and grinding technology in wet or dry modes for material appropriate processing. The Motion 2 allows dental laboratories of all sizes to fabricate exceptionally precise esthetic restorations in-house.

Ceramill Materials

The power of the Ceramill CAD/CAM system is enhanced by its ability to process advanced restorative materials including Amann Girrbach’s proprietary Zolid, a stable, non-veneered translucent zirconia;  Sintron®, a soft chrome cobalt; PMMA; wax; and glass ceramics plus VITABLOCS® Mark II and TriLuxe forte from VITA Zahnfabrik H. Rauter GmbH & Co and lithium disilicate such as IPS e.max® from Ivoclar Vivadent Inc.

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2014 issue of Dental Lab Products. For more information on other great lab products, subscribe to DLP's newsletter bit.ly/dentallabenews.