Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download
ePaper created 2015-03-06, 14:42:46 | version 1.33.01
_The definition of ‘value chain’ depicts the stages of production as an ordered series of activities. These activities create values, consume resources and are linked to one another in Processes. According to the approach taken by Michael E. Porter¹, ‘Every firm is a collection of activities that are performed to design, produce, market, deliver, and support its product. All of these activities can be represented using a value chain’. Another definition describes the value (adding) chain as ‘the stages of the transforma- tion process that a product or service passes through, from starting materials to final use’.² Valueaddedisthedifferencebetweentheincome that the product generates and the resources employed. To be specific, this means that the value chain is represented by the sum of all values added (margin) of each individual market participant. All market participants who wish to participate in a value chain together make up the value chain system of an industry. If this is applied to our industry, we must consider the specific situation of the market participants, ‘industry, dental lab, dental practice and patient’. All those involved are part of the value chain. In the past, industry generated its value added by manufacturing consumables or equipment for the dental techni- cian or dentist, the dental technician generated his value added by making traditional dental restorations and the dentist generated his value added by rendering services for patients. The chain has changed more and more over the past 20–30 years, mainly due to the introduction of digital technologies. The following outline pres- ents selected developments based on use of digi- tal technologies, plus a future-oriented project for the integration of total prosthetics into digi- tal technology. _Analogue meets digital (change in occupation profiles) The whole field of digital technologies in dentistry has now become so extensive that not all aspects can be covered in this article. For example, digital technology has an impact on the following. _The profile of a dental technician's occupation, which is no longer a ‘plaster room’ job but rather a computer workstation position. As a result, however, the requirements change for candi- dates because the modern-day ‘skilled trade’ calls for future applicants to be interested in I special _ digital technologies Fig. 1_Basic model of Porter’s value chain. (All images courtesy of Merz Dental GmbH.) 42 I CAD/CAM 1_2015 Corporate infrastructure Human resources Technologydevelopment Procurement Inbound logistics Operations Marketing and sales Outbound logistics Customer service Supporting activities Primary activities Profitmargin Profitmargin Fig. 1 Value chains being transformed by new digital dental technologies Innovative digital solution for dentures Author_Friedhelm Klingenburg, CEO Merz Dental GmbH, Germany CAD0115_42-48_Merz 02.03.15 12:57 Seite 1 CAD0115_42-48_Merz 02.03.1512:57 Seite 1