Dental Tribune Middle East & Africa Edition

Industrial News DENTALTRIBUNE Middle East & Africa Edition8 Bernhard Moldenhauer & Matthias Diessner DTI During SCANDEFA, a major dental fair in Scandinavia, DTI recently visited the 3Shape headquarters in the heart of downtown Copenhagen to learn about the company’s new products and future strategies. The historical building along- side Kongens Nytorv square and the Royal Danish Theatre has light and airy rooms, a per- fect environment for a young, passionate and ambitious or- ganisation driven to develop the best technological solu- tions in 3-D scanning and CAD/CAM. Often referred to as the “Google of the Dental Industry”, 3Shape was launched eleven years ago in a one-room apart- ment by two young and ambi- tious graduate students from the Technical University of Den- mark and Copenhagen Business School—TaisClausenandNikolaj Deichmann.Atthetime,Clausen was completing his master’s thesis on a groundbreaking 3-D scanning technology and Deich- mann was finalising his Master’s degree in Finance and Econom- ics. Having met through friends, they joined forces to participate in the prestigious Venture Cup business plan competition, es- tablished by McKinsey and Co., in which they finished second. Throughout the competition, they constantly considered the manner in which the technology could be commercialised and thus the idea of launching 3Shape was born. Initially, Clausen and Deich- mann approached companies in the hearing-aid industry with the idea of developing a quality- control system for hearing-aid shells and ear moulds. Similar to a dental restoration, the devices needtobecustomfittedtothepa- tient’s hearing canal and are tra- ditionally made by taking an ear impression that is then manually sculpted, cut and used to make a mould—a time-consuming, manual procedure. “During these first meetings, we realised that we could actu- ally create a mass customisation production system,” Deichmann remembered. “So instead of just checking the quality we decided to go directly for changing the workflow completely, from a manual process, where you spend several hours shaping the hearing-aid shells, to a com- pletely digital workflow.” 3Shape digitised the entire manufacturing process by intro- ducing a 3-D scanner for ear impression taking, as well as the management software and CAD software needed to simulate the positionofalltheelectroniccom- ponents that need to fit into the patient’s ear along with the shell, taking up minimal space and us- ing CAM software for controlling the manufacturing equipment. They developed the system for a specific hearing-aid manufac- turer but retained the rights to sell the technology to others. At the time, there were only six companies that controlled approximately 90 % of the global hearing-aid market and within aperiodofthreeyears,allofthem went from a completely manual to an entirely digital production. Today, about 90 % of all hearing- aid devices are produced using 3Shape’s technology. Clausen and Deichmann were always aware of the 3-D scanning technology’s enor- mous potential so they soon looked to other industries where themanufacturingprocessesare similar to the hearing-aid indus- Moving the dental world from analogue to digital: 3Shape’s success story continues From right to left: Nikolaj Deich- mann (CFO), Tais Clausen (CTO) and one of the in-house developers at 3Shape. (DTI/Photo courtesy of 3Shape, Denmark) TAKARA BELMONT CORPORATION Tel.+81 (0)6 6213 5945 Fax.+81 (0)6 6212 3680 e-mail :belmont7@belmont-corp.co.jp http://www.takara-net.com AD