Navagation Synergy™ Surgical Guides

Custom surgical guides to simplify complex dental surgery

They needed custom software to streamline their process. Building on top of our LightningCAD framework ensured faster design time with greater accuracy.

  • Technicians seeing >50% savings on design time (1-3 hours/design, down from 3-6)
  • Constraints/tools based on expert knowledge allow seamless 3D automation
  • Advanced organization and version control, reduced human error
  • Cloud-based system accessible to a wider audience
  • Delivers files ready for 3D printing
  • Enabled product feasibility
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They’re more than just a software company – they understand business and work well within this realm. They excel in translating technical conversations into layperson’s terms. They also helped us figure out our cost-benefit ratio as we decided which path to go down throughout the process. They’re customer-goal focused.

John Ballard
COO
Absolute Dental

We are so glad we decided to go with RoleModel when we began this project, and the end results have validated that decision. We wouldn’t have been able to get this high-end level of a total solution any other way. From the beginning, they quickly understood what we were trying to accomplish, doing an amazing job of immersing themselves into our “world” even though it was highly technical and specialized in nature. Within weeks, they produced foundational software we could begin to use incrementally, which immediately began to reduce our process time. Additionally, their iterative process allowed for quick adaptations to our almost continually changing requirements as our process advanced. This flexibility and their LightningCAD framework helped us meet our aggressive schedule with no surprises. In the end RoleModel exceeded our expectations, and delivered a final solution which allowed us to turn an idea into a now foundational revenue generating product.

John Ballard
COO
Absolute Dental

Overview

Absolute Dental Services utilizes a team of dental technicians and ceramists to offer a wide range of dental services to restorative dentists, top prosthodontists, periodontists, universities, and oral surgeons.

Recently they have dedicated resources to scale production of their Navagation Synergy™ surgical guides system used in reconstructive dental surgery. Absolute Dental's technicians provide quality solutions on a local and national level.

Problem

Absolute Dental's process for creating 3D printed surgical guides depended on using generic CAD tools that required technicians to understand both the surgical constraints and the CAD design process.

End to end design took highly skilled technicians excessive hours, and caused capacity to be dependent on the number of experienced employees available. Many functions within their generic design tools caused time waste and created unnecessary errors, offering no assistance in maintaining process and quality standards.

In order to fulfill each surgical guide, every unique reconstructive surgery had to be painstakingly constructed from scratch. This hindered process prevented the surgical toolkits from being feasible in the broader market due to capacity constraints.

Solution

Absolute Dental worked with RoleModel Software to build a system that helped technicians speed up production and lower the required expertise of personnel. RoleModel's innovative LightningCAD framework made it possible to do just that.

Working with a highly collaborative process enabled RoleModel's Craftsmen to learn and understand the expertise of Absolute Dental’s technicians.

The partnership began with on-site user studies, where RoleModel's Craftsmen gathered insight into Absolute Dental’s past practices. In the early stages of the solution build, the surgical toolkit design process was studied piece by piece to highlight major pain points, break down the specific needs of the dental technicians, and find best practices in order to home in on the ideal solution. This agile process created opportunities to discover optimization options and more chances to improve.

As RoleModel's Craftsmen worked with Absolute Dental's technicians to understand their process and critical needs, RoleModel initiated a process to deliver working software early and often. RoleModel set out to determine the minimum viable product (MVP) in order to produce a walking skeleton (an early deliverable of working software) as soon as possible.

This collaboration not only allowed for software improvements, but also enabled Absolute Dental’s technicians to enhance the core product design process. Within weeks, RoleModel Software had usable pieces of the solution that Absolute Dental's technicians were able to start using right away. The Craftsmen at RoleModel were able to identify ways to create working software in segments so that even early on Absolute Dental was able to capitalize on their investment within a hybrid workflow.

Through routine and regular testing RoleModel constructed software that enhanced and automated Absolute Dental's ideal workflow, and ultimately provided a solution that streamlined the end-to-end construction of dental surgical guides.

We’ve seen a significant improvement in efficiency and productivity. There has been an approximately 50–75% improvement in the labor productivity for the designing of the various guides and appliances, therefore significantly lowering our cost while greatly improving our overall capacity limit.

John Ballard
COO
Absolute Dental

Results

The software solution generated from Absolute Dental’s partnership made their product line feasible, and turned a capacity hindered product line into a foundational product for their company and customers. Absolute Dental’s LightningCAD system greatly increased their capacity, cut down on human error, and reduced overhead costs.

Designs which used to take highly skilled technicians 3-6 hours, now only take 1-3. Technicians with less training are now able to do more than twice the amount of designs in less time, with greater accuracy. Complex constraints and expert knowledge were intuitively built into the software solution so that elite technicians are able to focus on critical components of product design, while the software automates previously tedious design procedures.

The LightningCAD framework allows for the design platform to be delivered over a browser which makes their process accessible to a wider audience and produces files ready for 3D printing.

Now, Absolute Dental's technicians utilize RoleModel Software's custom solution end-to end, designing surgical dental toolkits.

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