The title is confusing, what have they got to do with each other I hear you ask, well I hope to explain.
I am often in a situation with clients where I am trying to explain to them the work that is involved in making their crowns, veneers, bridges and dentures. For most people and I dont for once lay blame at their door, these are things that a dentist makes him/herself or sends to someone else (a technician) to have manufactured. What is involved in this process is poorly understood and I understand why. We historically as dentists have been happy to do 1 of 2 things….
1)Take the praise when a crown is great and everyone is happy, it fits and looks well. We are happy to revel in the asumption that many patients have, that the dentist did a great job and no one else was involved. I am sure that the technician who has made this unique piece of work by hand is never mentionned.
2) Be the first to blame the technician when things dont quite go so well ie: the crown is the wrong colour or fits poorly. Its usually only at this stage the patient becomes aware of a technician existing at all.
You see crowns, veneers, dentures and bridges are not available to buy ‘off the shelf’ they are all hand made bespoke items that will fit ONLY the tooth or patient that they are intended for. To handmake anything from scratch takes time and expertise and this is solely in the hands of the often under praised technicians in the dental world. The time spent and the expertise used, costs money, and it is this cost factor that suprises many, but is understood once explained to them. Take for example a jeweller making rings, he will go through a similar process for making say a gold band as a dental technician will for making a bonded crown (metal with porcelain over the top). The difference is that the jeweller can reproduce the ring many times over, the dental technician can’t… the crown is completely UNIQUE!!
What has this to do with guns?? well I was reading an article about a gunmaker ‘Westley Richards’ who like us pride themselves on the quality of what we deliver. They are a family business producing only 30 guns per year each having approximatley 700 man hours each to finish…… you can imagine the expense. The MD refuses to give his company over to what he describes as the ‘number crunchers’, as they will simply want 50 guns produced per year to increase profits…. but to produce 50 guns the time spent on each would have to decrease and the end product quality would suffer, something the MD will not allow. So he has stood strong to protect his name and product quality and I am sure this will simply make his product more desirable…
For us in dentistry I think this is an important parallel, I could use a technician who worked in a ‘high output’ laboratory, my fees would be less there is no question BUT I want to maintain the quality. This has to suffer in a laboratory set-up where numbers and output are the main goals, the finesse and attention to detail cannot be sustainable. So we at Blueapple use, and will continue to do so, a bespoke low output laboratory (LS Browne techincal services) where like at ‘Westley Richards’ the man hours per item is high and the product speaks for itself. This I trust will make us more desirable and allow us to continue to offer our clients the best products we can source.
Can you tell which is the crown??
