How CAD-CAM is Transforming Dental Labs

83% of dental technicians adopted CAD/CAM systems globally. This shows how quickly digital workflows transformed the dental labs.

And yet, what’s interesting, this digital adoption hasn’t made the work 100% reliable. The challenges have simply evolved with the introduction of new technology. Large dental labs have taken on bigger caseloads with limited trained staff, which often leads to compromised quality due to limited time for each case. Still, 80% of dental laboratories have in-house CAD/CAM systems capable of scanning and milling restorations internally.

So, even after limitations, how is CAD/CAM transforming dental labs? This blog answers this exact question.

First, What Even is CAD/CAM?

CAD stands for Computer-Aided Design. CAM stands for Computer-Aided Manufacturing. Together, they form the backbone of what’s quietly becoming the new normal in dental labs.

Here’s the less jargon-y version: a dental scan goes in, a precise digital design comes out, and a milling machine (or 3D printer) turns that design into a physical restoration. No hand-carving, no “eyeballing the occlusion,” no praying the crown fits on the first try.

The whole process is sometimes called molar modeling in more casual lab circles, which is exactly what it sounds like. Digital, precise, repeatable molar modeling. (Okay, fine, I made that up. But it fits.)

What’s Actually Changing for Labs

Technology has improved the modern dental lab far beyond the idea of replacing human workers with computers.

• CAD/CAM technology has made the entire lab workflow faster, and CAD/CAM design with modern dental technology has made turnaround with overnight cases possible. The time required for the design workflow has decreased from a day to a few hours. Such a considerable increase in turnaround time changes the business operations of the dental lab.
• With the introduction of CAD/CAM technology and unit operations with design software, fit for accuracy and traditional margin errors of restorations have drastically changed. Many CAD/CAM design cases now fall to and under the threshold of 50 microns, with the average human hair being 70 microns. Dentists calling labs to order remakes have become a rarity.
• The ability to design cases digitally has aided in the consistency of design and logic in the workflow of a lab. This has made the required standardization of the more complex cases possible. It has also eliminated the need to blindly trust a colleague for a design in the workflow, as the logic of the design is now auditable. With each design, consistency in logic allows confidence in the execution of the workflow regardless of the design of the colleague.
• Labs working with solid **CAD/CAM dental lab **workflows are seeing remake rates fall to somewhere in the 2–5% range. For context, traditional analog labs were sometimes dealing with 10–15% remakes depending on case complexity. That gap translates directly into money and client trust.

What Software is Actually Running This

Two names come up constantly in dental design circles: Exocad and 3Shape.

Exocad is the flexible one. Highly customizable, modular, and popular with labs that handle a wide variety of case types. 3Shape is the more polished, end-to-end ecosystem. Both are genuinely excellent; the debate between labs about which one is “better” is basically the dental version of the Mac vs. PC argument. (Nobody wins. Everyone has opinions.)

Between these two platforms, digital dental designers can build crowns, bridges, implant abutments, dentures, surgical guides, splints, veneers, and a surprising number of other things that used to require completely separate workflows.

The Part Labs Don’t Always Expect

Once labs get used to going digital, what bogs them down tends to be different.

In a manual workflow, the bottleneck tends to be manual production time (limited by the number of people). That is not the case when you go CAD/CAM. In this scenario, the bottleneck is design throughput. With CAD/CAM, you need to have employees or outsourced partners who are proficient in CAD/CAM systems, workflows, and skilled in dental design.

For this reason, it makes more sense for the smaller labs to outsource the design work, as opposed to building a design team, as software licenses, training, and designing with CAD/CAM, e.g., Exocad and 3Shape, is a long and painful process.

The digital workflow advantages are obtained by having the design work done by digital CAD/CAM lab partners, while the customer’s CAD/CAM outputs are manufactured in the lab. This is the in-house outsourcing of the design work.

Where Cosmetic Cases Fit into All This

Cosmetic dentistry is where the **CAD/CAM dental design lab **conversation gets genuinely interesting.

Veneers and digital wax-ups are two cases where digital design has changed expectations pretty dramatically. A digital wax-up used to be a physical thing: wax added to stone models to simulate a proposed result. Now it’s a 3D digital preview that dentists can show patients before any physical work begins. Patients see their potential smile on a screen. That’s a selling tool as much as a clinical one.

Veneers, meanwhile, are one of the trickier restorations to get right aesthetically. Marginal fit, translucency, natural contour. CAD software lets designers fine-tune all of that with a precision that’s tough to replicate by hand, especially at scale.

Final Words

CAD/CAM not only boosted speed but also altered what labs can offer, the number of cases they can take, and set a new standard.

Early adopters of digital workflows have a new competitive advantage. The tools aren’t necessarily revolutionary, but a digital lab outperforms a traditional lab by an ever-growing margin. The limitations on case complexity and patient expectations continue to decrease, and the margin for error on restorations is also decreasing.

With the technology at the point it is, the phrase, “we’re thinking about going digital,” is more likely to indicate a delay, not a plan.

**Iconic Dental Designs **Centre partners with dental labs on digital design for fixed prosthetics, implants, cosmetics, dentures, and more with Exocad and 3Shape. If your lab is looking for a design partner that integrates into your workflow, contact us.