What can a dental laboratory automate?
Monitoring arrivals, retrieving accessible files, applying naming rules, filing folders, preparing work-sheet printing and flagging exceptions can follow defined rules. Prescription reading and case decisions remain human.
How does the 36-hour example work?
At two minutes per case and fifty cases per day, reception represents one hour and forty minutes per day. Over roughly twenty-two working days, that is about thirty-six hours per month.
Why process on the laboratory workstation?
It keeps the production folders in the local or network environment chosen by the laboratory. Some connections require technical transit through our connection server, without storing the cases there.
| Step | Manual or remote approach | Laboratory workstation approach |
|---|---|---|
| 50 cases × 2 minutes | 100 minutes | Example daily reception time |
| 100 minutes | 1 hour 40 minutes | Example daily reception time |
| 1 hour 40 × 22 days | About 36 hours | Example monthly reception time |
According to your laboratory
Small laboratory
Start with one workstation, one source and a simple destination folder. The goal is to make the first reception step predictable, not to change every production habit.
Growing laboratory
Agree on naming, destination folders and how incomplete cases are treated. Automation serves those rules; it does not replace them.
Several sites
Use a designated reception workstation. The team can access the folders through the laboratory network according to its own infrastructure and permissions.