From the editor

From theEditor

Matt Everatt F.O.T.A

lWell hello September! Welcome

readers, to your September edition of The Dental Technician Magazine.

Where did the summer go? For the first time in my adult working life myself and my wife decided to have a big family break and took the whole of August off from work. I wasn't quite sure how it would go. We still had the odd meeting to attend, a few emails to respond to, but for the majority of the time, we spent lots of time with the family. In a blink we hit September and the panic kicked in! Did the kids have school shoes that fit, are their trousers going to now be half-mast seeing as they've just grown so quick in the summer? A quick online order from Next and M&S and all was calm again.

Seriously though, there has been a lot going on over the summer. We will have a new Prime Minister by the time this Magazine lands. The cost of living crisis is in the hourly news bulletins. Inflation is at its highest in decades. The war in Ukraine continues. Souring energy bills. The NHS dentistry is looking like its well and truly clinging on for dear life. Where does this leave us? Recently, I wrote a plea to dentists to ask them to support their UK labs and to stop looking to squeeze labs on prices. I put it to them, looking to save a £ or two on a crown or a retainer isn't where they should be looking to save money. The way dentists often price their cases, adding a £ or two to the end price is easily achieved and to the individual patient, it is insignificant, but to the lab producing high volumes with low margins, it makes a big difference. Which leads me on to pricing....... I've mentioned pricing in several previous editions of the magazine this year already. Without sounding like a broken record, please lab owners, take a look at your pricing. Are you actually pricing your work properly? Most of us have seen material prices rise significantly since Brexit and the pandemic. Energy prices are about to go crazy. Cost of travel, running a car or a van to collect work will have risen disgustingly in the last 18 months. Have you looked at these increased costs v's the prices you are selling your products and services? If you haven't had at least one price increase in the last 2 years then you were either high on margins previously, well done, keep up the good work. Or, you are making a lot less profit than previously.

I spoke to a friend recently who has been offering his services to a couple of old clients who he calls friends. When we drilled down the cost of his goods sold v's the prices he was charging, it was more cost effective for him to lose the work. He's into property rental cleaning and maintenance. For every turnover between guests he did, it was costing him around £3, his outgoings were more than the income. It did make me wonder how many labs have accounts like this. The ones always asking for a favour or a discount and haggle over any talk of price increases. Do take a fresh look if you've not done it for a while. You might be surprised. The old saying goes, 'turnover is vanity, profit is sanity'.

We sadly have two obituaries to report in this month’s magazine. One in particular that has really hit home was the sad passing of Chris Bridle. Chris was a pillar of the Orthodontic Technicians Association ever since I remember and was Chairman for many years and later became President, a position only ever previously held by an Orthodontist. He delivered so many lectures and worked so hard raising the profile of Dental Technicians and Orthodontic Technicians. Another sad loss was the passing of Stephen Hall, who played another huge part in Dental Technology over the years. Stephen sadly lost his 4-year battle to cancer and passed away last month.

WATCH THE VIDEO!

High-precision milling of threaded channels in hard metals with the M2 Teleskoper Wet Heavy Metal milling unit. The machine is fully vibration-resistant thanks to the particularly stable double bearing suspension and the new, more powerful and compact spindle.

NEW! M2 TELESKOPER WET HEAVY METAL

OPEN SYSTEMS

FULLY AUTOMATIC, FLEXIBLE, VIBRATION-FREE – WITH THE EXTRA-LARGE TELESKOPER ORBIT (Ø 125 mm)

New milling unit with fully automatic 5+1 axis simultaneous milling technology, one extra-large Teleskoper Orbit (Ø 125 mm) and an extra short, powerful and compact spindle, which lend the machine a high resistance to vibrations. With the extra-large Teleskoper Orbit, discs can be removed and reinserted back into the orbit at the same position with high precision in the µm range. This is particularly useful for adjusting the friction of telescopic jobs or for the two-stage fabrication of immediate restorations in case of implant-supported prostheses (Double Milling technique).