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high-volume custom designed manufacturing in the news

Check out this report from WCVB on the Atlantis concept from Dentsply Sirona Implants. Do you need to produce over 1,000 custom designed products a day?  Sign up or contact us to find out more.

https://www.wcvb.com/article/made-in-mass-company-dentsply-sinora-using-3d-technology-to-help-improve-smiles/26296687

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Can you spare a few moments to take my survey?

Please take the survey titled “Metatooth Nightguard”. Your feedback is helpful! Thank you.

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Align Technology’s use of 3D printing

I recently came across this 2017 article by TJ McCue: 3D Printing Moves Align Technology Toward $1.3 Billion In Sales It contains information useful to understanding Align Technology’s business model.  Here’s what I found.

Treatment Efficiency

8 million aligners a year for 540,000 cases is 14.8 aligners per case. They also report a cumulative 327 million aligners to 4.5 million patients or 72.7 aligners per case. Not sure what to do about that, but I expect they used to make a lot more per case then they do now.

Average Sales Price

At the time, Align estimated a US market of 10 million orthodontic cases a year, with 60% or 6 million cases where aligner treatment is indicated. They claimed 9% of those for 540,000 cases.

Figuring $1.283 billion in sales of Invisalign for 540,000 cases is an ASP of $2,167.  I don’t think this number has changed since then.

Cost

The author claims to have seen 50 to 60 machines.  The 3D Systems’ Figure 4 starts at $25,000. Material cost per part should be low, say $5. They must have more capacity than the 8 million part demand.  Let’s say they are at 80% of total machine usage.  Can one Figure 4 print 30 trays an hour? There must of been more machines than the author saw!

Whatever the cost structure, Align Technology has eye-popping results.