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Dental Lab Products – 10 Questions

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Dental Lab Products - 10 Questions

May 2014 | Additions January 2025
1. What's Strategy Milling's background? How long has it been around? How does it work with APMR, and who is in leadership?

Strategy Milling was the idea of Don Mappin, who surmised that if labs were still making gold crowns, the apparent benefits of milling and digitizing would benefit that restoration type and the industry just as it has for many other materials and processes. The figurative groundwork was put in motion at the beginning of 2012. Fast forward to 2024, and Strategy Milling has been the leader in precious and non-precious CAD/CAM dental restorations in North America. Scott Mappin is the President at Strategy.

2. What led APMR to form Strategy Milling?

LLate in 2011, Scott Mappin, Don’s youngest brother, a veteran of the dental laboratory industry with a broad scope of experience, resigned from a lab and found himself unemployed. Don offered a position. Scott was in his 33rd year as a technician and unwittingly became an asset to Atlantic, eventually transforming Don’s idea into a reality. Scott had spent the previous 5 years focusing on different aspects of digital forms of dental technology. From being a trainer for 3M’s LAVA COS and training over 100 dental offices to use and integrate that intraoral scanner to managing large milling and outsourcing laboratories such as Issaquah Dental Lab & Albensi Dental Lab. These three opportunities provided the foundation of knowledge regarding how to create Strategy Milling.

3. What were you hearing from the industry that led you to know it was the right time?

Nothing… realistically, there was no one banging down the door for this service. We looked at it through the lens of a precious metal refiner that built its business refining all sorts of dental scrap and our understanding of the state of the industry:


4. How has the technology changed that enables Strategy Milling's gold milling?
5. What's been the response from around the lab industry?
While we anticipated quicker growth, the response has been highly positive. The only negative from my perspective is that there is confusion out there. One large company dominating gold sales in this space has created confusion by stating that they, too, were milling gold when, in fact, they were not. No other milling centers or companies in the USA were milling gold alloys at the beginning. Strategy was the sole provider in the North American market for three and a half years.
6. What have you heard from labs and dentists who have used Strategy Milling?
7. In your opinion, what does gold offer to labs that other alternatives don't?

Specifically, “milled” gold offers a laboratory a restoration containing the following positive attributes: Lower cost of manufacturing higher quality of internal “fit” when comparing the state of our milled product as the customer receives it VS the state of a divested gold crown that has been cast; less finish time from the fit and external surface texture… and if appropriately designed, a great way to save money as the lab is only paying for the restorations weight and not the typically accompanying sprue system. Other than that, it falls back to what are now becoming the classic discussions between the available alternatives. Do YOU believe that gold is good? We do. It is more reliable, consistent, and user-friendly for all involved… lab, Dr., patient, and a better fitting product than Zirconia, milled Lithium Dislocate, or cast PFM frameworks for posterior restorations.

8. What makes Strategy Milling different from other milling center options?
Strategy Milling began as the first company to provide a milled precious metal milling service to the dental industry in North America. The product range has expanded over the years to include milled cobalt chrome, titanium, two brands of Premill abutments, two zirconia brands, two PMMA materials, one for night guards, one for long-term temporary restorations, and also the ability to mill implant interfaces for multi-unit bridges in two gold alloys for crowns and bridges, two PFM alloys for ceramic application, and titanium, eliminating the need for abutments. At the time of this writing, tests are ongoing to validate single-unit pfm or gold restorations milled directly to the implant interface, eliminating the need for abutments or UCLA-style work.
9. How will Strategy Milling change the industry?
We believe Strategy will become the standard in the industry for producing gold prosthetics as labs learn about our products and services. We have brought gold restorations into the digital age. Fast-forward to 2025, and Strategy has added numerous products and services, maintaining its unique offerings at far better prices and challenging other vendors in this space.
10. Anything else you'd like to add?

Labs now have a resource to aid them in manufacturing gold products more efficiently and attaining what doctors would like to see: a flat-rate gold restoration. Labs that do this and market it to their dentist clients could see their gold business grow!

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Welcome to Strategy Milling

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Welcome to Strategy Milling

August 6, 2014

Welcome to Strategy Milling, the only direct CAD/CAM Gold Dental Prosthetic Resource in the United States offering three direct milled alloys!

Strategy Milling believes in gold as a premier restorative material for posterior teeth. We want to challenge what has become of the status quo. We are dedicated to offering the BEST alternative manufacturing process possible for dental laboratories to provide this restoration efficiently.

Other restorative materials are relatively inexpensive in their raw form and can be produced into a puck for milling processes. That does not override our belief that if a characteristic comparison were to be made between these other materials and gold, they would fall short. Gold cannot be beaten as a restorative material choice!

Our gold milling facilities maintain three high-precision Röders RXD5 milling machines. To maximize productivity, we also incorporated Röders RCS-1 Automation Robots and Magazines for each mill.

Our one-of-a-kind proprietary puck production process produces relatively porosity-free gold pucks of different thicknesses in-house for our consumption. X-ray and inductively coupled spectrograph technology are two of the tools used to monitor, maintain, and test our alloys. These technologies and our trained staff are what allow us to quickly evaluate any lot of metal, determine its elemental makeup vs. its standard, make any adjustments necessary, and consistently produce the next lot of alloy for the mills.

It makes sense that the usage of gold alloy substructures and crown restorations would decline as gold prices grow higher, making it prohibitive for doctors to prescribe them. Now, with Strategy Milling, labs have an alternative that has never been seen before: the Direct CAD/CAM all-gold crown.

As long as gold crowns are still being produced in the marketplace, Strategy Milling will be available to provide a more economical product, a Direct CAD/CAM Gold crown makes great sense if one needs to be fabricated.

We are Strategy Milling, the only large-scale, commercially viable source for Direct CAD/CAM milled gold prosthetics in the world and we can’t wait to work with you!

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2014 was a Great Year for Strategy Gold Milling!

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2014 was a Great Year for Strategy Gold Milling!

December 30, 2014

It was Strategy’s first full year of sales, and it marked the sale of 10,000 gold crowns in the first half of the year. Among the company’s published exposure, it was honored to be named one of Inside Dental Technology’s™ Top Game-Changing Products of 2014.

As we continue to improve our processes and focus on new products and menu options to respond to the requests of progressive CAD/CAM users across the country, 2015 looks as shiny and bright as a Strategy Milling gold crown!

Keep up to date on all the new happenings at Strategy Gold Milling this year by liking and following our Facebook page!

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How Strategy Milling Creates an Efficient Workflow

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How Strategy Milling Creates an Effecient Workflow

This will explain how Strategy Milling can help create an efficient workflow in your dental lab.

I recall hearing that about 56 million crown and bridge restorations were made in the United States in 2013. Many restorations are wholly or partially fabricated using a digital workflow or digitized manufacturing process. Until March 2013, a gold restoration had to be manufactured using either CAD-CAST or analog processes.

Strategy Milling changed the landscape; now, a proven CAD CAM process exists for gold restorations.

Strategy has done something unprecedented in the industry. While CAD CAST certainly has advantages over the total analog process, it still produces a cast restoration. Those who have not yet tried the direct milled CAD CAM process for full gold restorations are missing out on a result that proves to be far better than the cast restoration.

The same workflow in labs that produce CAD Cast restorations for Zirconia or a press process can now also be used for full gold. Design and send it to Strategy; we will return the finest gold crown you have ever seen. The margins are impeccable, the restoration arrives with about ten minutes of work to complete, and you only purchase the amount of gold needed when you need it. This is a major tenant of well-known manufacturing principles covered in Lean Manufacturing.

If you have not raised your prices lately, the only way you can maintain your profit or make more is to either produce more units or find more profitable ways to manufacture what you are doing. Strategy Milling affords these opportunities… we are the most effective and economical way to manufacture a gold restoration. Take advantage of the already existing workflow and add Strategy Milling to your outsource vendors and grow your profitability, productivity, and cash flow. If there was ever a product/service that could have a strong positive effect on these three major aspects of business, Strategy Milled Gold is it!

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How Strategy Milling Affects Profitability

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How Strategy Milling Affects Profitability

Strategy Milling provides the opportunity to offer a lower-cost restoration to your clients while increasing profitability.

To understand this concept, let’s examine the traditional analog scenario of how gold restorations are created and the costs related to that process.

  1. Lab receives case from Dr.
  2. Model work is created: materials & labor
  3. Die is cut & trimmed – labor
  4. Sealer and spacer are applied – materials & labor
  5. Crown is hand waxed, sprued, set in ring former, invested, allowed to set, removed from ring former, heated, metal is melted, casting is made, the ring is set to cool, divesting takes place, de-spruing happens, the gold is weighed, the restoration is examined for bubbles of overextensions and fit to die, machining or “finishing” begins and ends with the polishing of the restoration – labor, materials & down time.
All of the above steps are pretty common to technicians.

Using Strategy Gold Milling?

Also standard is purchasing the gold alloy, which impacts cash flow. Upon buying the alloy, it is marked up by a percentage. How much? 25%? 50%? 100%? I have seen and heard of all these percentages.

Why do we do that? We were taught this by watching our peers or listening to our mentors. Selling higher than the purchase price covers the expense of floating that much inventory from the day you purchased it to the day you sold the last bit of it. Laboratories must cover the economic cost affecting the outlay of cash. Agreed? Agreed. Lab owners became gold brokers.

Now, let’s consider this question. Are you a zirconia, lithium dislocate, titanium, chrome cobalt, or wax broker? No. You do not weigh any of these materials when you use them… you figure out the cost of the puck or block divided by the average unit capacity of the material and charge your profit margin based on averages. This allows you to sell these restorations at a flat fee to your accounts, and in the end, you win. Your accounts buy these items knowing the final cost of the restoration.

You can now do this with gold. This strategy eliminates the need to be a gold broker and allows you to work off averages to sell flat-fee gold restorations to your clients and win against the averages.

How do I determine what I charge my customers? We suggest you look at your previous 6 months’ gold restoration sales and see the average selling price. What was the average profit margin? Take the average and lower it by $20.00 or $25.00. What price are you looking at? Does that align with the cost/effort to perform these steps? What about your profitability? If you sell a high noble restoration on average for 325.00 a unit and are at about a 40% profit margin.

If you could:

You could realize a profit margin of about 80% while lowering the client’s overall cost and sell far more gold crowns.

In a conversation with a Dentist, he told me of his experience at a meeting where the question was posed: “How many of you still use gold?” He raised his hand—he was the only one. He was then asked: “How do you still sell gold?” He told them: “I’m the Dentist. My patients trust me.”
From our survey, we know that the two reasons doctors don’t sell more gold are cost and patient acceptance.

(This Dr. still casts his gold crowns. He controls the cost and likely doesn’t have to mark up the product too much. However, he sells more because the patients trust him, and he knows it’s the best material all the way around.)

It turns out that the answers to questions around cost, presented in the market research to dentists, was looked into. The Dr.’s knew gold crowns would cost more, they just didn’t know what the cost would be until the restoration was completed. That causes them a problem. How do you charge the patient the correct fee if you don’t know your final costs from the laboratory?

The dentist leads patient perceptions—see the example above. The dentist is reluctant to sell gold not because it isn’t better than other choices but because the other choices have known costs associated with them.

Now, with Strategy Gold Milling, you can provide your doctors with this peace of mind. You can offer the flat fee to the doctor and sell more of something that easily integrates with other digitized products in your current lab workflow, increasing cash flow, minimizing materials and labor costs, and increasing profitability.

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Fit, Form and Function

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Fit, Form and Function

Fit, form, and function are the basic tenets of excellent dental restoration and spearheading every manufacturing move at Strategy Gold Milling.

Comparing gold restorations directly milled using a digital workflow to an analog workflow is like comparing apples to backhoes. These two processes have different numbers of steps, with varying levels of opportunity for problems or distortion between those steps to occur. The extra steps in the analog process create opportunities for failures that don’t exist in the direct-milled digital workflow.

Strategy Milling has developed a process to create virtually porosity-free pucks of noble and high-noble gold alloys to mill from. The accuracy and repeatability of the milling process are outstanding when using our state-of-the-art milling machines with tight tooling parameters. Milling eliminates the many issues related to spruing, burnout, and casting, providing predictable, fast results, and requiring far less manual labor to create or finish.

Strategy Milling is the leader in direct CAD-CAM milling of gold restorations, repeatedly producing precise, sharp, contoured, and well-fitting restorations!

Say goodbye to casting gold crowns and hello to the future: direct milled, full-contour gold restorations from Strategy Gold Milling.

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The Technology Used at Strategy Milling

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The Technology Used at Strategy Milling

Much of the technology used in the production of our product is proprietary. We do, however, share that we use Roeders RXD5 Mills. This mill is a beast and has some features that simply made great sense to us when it came to precision, run time/downtime, stability, maintenance, and longevity without issues.

I researched dozens of mills in the planning stages of this company. Why select Roeders? When it got down to interviewing the three companies, Victor P., President of Roeders America, was the most impressive. He is the president of Roeders USA, and his cell phone number is in my phone’s contacts list. When I call, he answers. I knew I would need and wanted to partner with a company that would have my back when it came time to lean on them. He and Roeders have. His business partner is Mr. Roeders of Germany. For over 200 years and six generations in direct descent, Roeders has been a family-owned and operated company. While we don’t have a comparable lineage, we like the fact that we are working with a family-owned company and understand the pride and energy put into a business when you have your name on it.

As the vetting process moved forward, committing to Roeders became an easy decision. Being connected to two top individuals in the company gave me confidence that if I had any issues, the service I demanded would be within reach. The relationship has been excellent, and we are delighted with our purchase.

Now about the mill: We love working with the systems that Roeders provided and that the options we requested were all possible, allowing us to run our business as planned. We asked for certain production capacity, consistency in milling, and many other demands regarding part manufacturing time, tolerance demands, automation requests, lights-out milling, etc. All were met with enthusiasm and support from Germany. The mills provide laser accuracy in tool length measurement for every tool used, every time it is used. Calibration systems keep milling in spec and worry-free, thereby enabling high-reliability axis drives with linear motor technology in all axes, water cooling for high efficiency, and long durability. We can clamp on one side of our puck instead of the full circumference, offering us a larger utilization of puck material than we would otherwise experience. It is quite a valuable bit of efficiency when manufacturing your own gold pucks. These systems also employ automatic tool breakage detection and wear control. We took advantage of other options that Roeders had available, such as RFID-labeled cups, which allowed for automatic referencing of the machined dental parts to the cup ID by the software, integration of label printing, and barcoding.

Regarding our business model, we knew what we wanted, and when asked, Roeders delivered. The mills have not disappointed us on any level and have impressed everyone who has had the opportunity to observe them in action. To see a mill of this caliber plow through a beautiful gold puck and create what you see on our Facebook page for our customers has been a life experience worth having. We love our mills, and our customers love what they do!

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Strategy Milling Increases Daily Production 66% by Financing New Equipment

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Strategy Milling Increases Daily Production 66% by Financing New Equipment

By Luci Casile, Business Banking Relationship Manager, KeyBank and Susan Krieger, Key Equipment Finance
Strategy Milling is the most experienced, large-scale, commercially viable source for Direct CAD/CAM milled gold crowns in North America. Strategy Milling’s CEO, Scott Mappin, wanted to increase his company’s production to grow his business and solidify his company’s reputation as the premier provider of precious metal dental restorations.
Challenge
Strategy Milling is the leader in direct milled CAD/CAM (Computer-aided design and Computer-aided manufacturing) gold dental restorations and manufacturing precise, sharp contoured and excellent fitting dental restorations. The company developed a process to create virtually porosity-free pucks of noble and high noble gold alloys to mill from with high-quality results. The accuracy and repeatability of the milling process is remarkable, thanks to the state-of-the-art milling machines with tight tooling parameters. Milling eliminates the many issues related to spruing, burnout, and casting, offering predictable and efficient results.
In nine years, Strategy has no record of a milled bridge needing soldering or welding. Cumulative accounting for the dollar value of all items listing exceeds outsourcing costs while increasing fit quality. Additionally, while Strategy manages these restorations, technicians can focus on manufacturing other products, increasing laboratory production.
"By allowing us to purchase state-of-the-art equipment, at relatively low overhead, KeyBank is allowing us to grow our business, maintain a healthy work/life balance for our team, and continue providing excellent service to our customers and their customers alike."
Scott Mappin, Chief Executive Officer, Strategy Milling

Strategy Milling has a keen focus on superiority in production through efficient processes and continuous improvement. The company’s business reputation is built on a superior end product, timely delivery and the customer service they provide to their customers and ultimately, the patients. Further, the future of this business is direct milled, full contour gold restorations, and milled substructures, which require the modern milling machinery they use.

“As I talked with Scott, and learned more about his business, his drive for growth and success, and his true passion for the craft of dental milling and continuous improvement, I knew KeyBank could offer solutions that align with his business growth goals,” said Luci Casile, business banking relationship manager, KeyBank.

KeyBank worked with Mappin to identify a business refinancing option and a line of credit to Strategy Milling that allowed the company to continue its focus on growing the business through innovative production methods and smart use of resources.

To aid in providing efficient service and a high-quality finished product, Strategy Milling needed to increase its machine production by purchasing two additional top-of-the-line dental milling machines at a total cost of $1M. The machines would allow Strategy Milling to increase production, while also optimizing use of raw materials.

“I knew this was an ideal time to introduce Scott to Susan Krieger at Key Equipment Finance, and investigate equipment financing options,” said Casile.

"Luci at KeyBank took the time to listen and assure us she understood who we are, and what our short- and long-term goals are."
Scott Mappin
Solution

State-of-the-art digital milling machines would allow Strategy Milling to ensure steady production with minimal downtime – the machines run 24/7 and are managed remotely – while reallocating the limited human resources to other crucial business tasks.

“Luci and I knew Scott had big ambitions for his business, and we wanted to help,” said Susan Krieger, vice president, Key Equipment Finance. “He had several options and my goal was to inform him of all equipment financing possibilities and answer any questions he had as he determined how to move forward.”

Results

“Luci at KeyBank took the time to listen and assure us she understood who we are, and what our short- and long-term goals are,” said Mappin. “I appreciate that she believed in Strategy Milling and what we’re trying to do. I truly enjoyed working with Luci and Susan through the finance of our new milling machines.

“We leave at 5 p.m. and return the next day at 8 a.m. to a cabinet full of product ready to ship,” said Mappin. “That’s the quality-of-life factor for our team, and the gravy is in the ROI. We look forward to growing our business by expanding production and maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

“I definitely recommend the experts at KeyBank and Key Equipment Finance for anyone seeking refinancing and equipment financing for their business,” said Mappin.

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Strategy Milling Wins WOW Award

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Strategy Milling Wins WOW Award

Journal of Dental Technology, October 2022
Milling precious metal crowns eliminates common issues from the lost wax casting technique. Sound disc production allows control in manufacturing the alloy, idealizing characteristics such as grain size while minimizing porosity and inclusions. Design files exit the laboratory’s digital workflow as stl or lab files and are emailed to Strategy Milling, eliminating the analog or CAD-Cast path for their manufacture. At Strategy, files automatically enter the queue, are nested, calculated, cut, cleaned, inspected, weighed, labeled, and returned to the customer. Files received by noon EST any business day ship the following business day via second-day UPS.
In what ways does it save time and money?

Outsourcing eliminates or minimizes the following steps, each having a dollar value:

Strategy has no record of a milled bridge needing soldering or welding in eleven years. Cumulative accounting for the dollar value of all items listed exceeds outsourcing costs while increasing fit quality. Additionally, while Strategy manages these restorations, technicians can focus on manufacturing other products, increasing laboratory production.

How have quality and efficiency improved?

Strategy’s mills employ customized CAM software providing unmatched part accuracy. After casting parts in the laboratory, a technician typically fits dies into abutments and then inserts the dies into a model base, evaluating the overall fit of a frame. Many times, in multi-unit frames, there are interferences between preps related to parallelism. In the software at Strategy, these interferences are visible and eliminated through re-machining, leading to a multi-abutment frame seating on dies, most often without any adjustment. Mill quality matters. Strategy invested heavily in precise milling platforms. Globally, no other precious metal milling facility operates five Roeders RXD-5 (5-axis) mills with RCS-1 automation. Roeder’s mills are heavy. At 8,500 lbs., that stability provides accurate, smooth cutting and minimized vibration while maximizing speed. Roeder’s mills have no metal-to-metal parts that wear and deplete any axis’s precise movement. Maglev and pneumatic technology energize the five-axis motions. High-pressure air automatically cleans the tools after every use. A laser measures the length, radius, and diameter before returning the tool to the belt. Those measurements, cumulative cutting time, and distance are recorded and compared to standards set in background software. If a tool exceeds its criteria, the mill puts it away, marks it as used, and never picks it up again. This software vigilance leads to consistency in manufacturing that other milling platforms cannot provide. Across nine years of milling, the external remake rate for Strategy-induced errors stands at <0.5 percent.

What WOW factor differentiates this product/service in the dental lab world?

Strategy Milling provides laboratories with access to a world-class metal department, maximizing lean manufacturing principles and minimizing alloy inventory while improving fit and quality one restoration at a time. All while offering the “Gold Standard” in customer service! Strategy Milling’s manufacturing process delivers the finest precious metal milling in the world..

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