The DSD Planning Center is our global clinical hub for interdisciplinary treatment planning, responsible for helping dentists plan their cases while DSD Lab creates the products that are used in treatment planning and treatment delivery. In addition, it is responsible for the research and design of any products we develop within DSD.

So what happened in these parts of the business in 2019 and what do their achievements look like in numbers? Let’s take a look!

DSD Planning Center

The Planning Center helps dentists and their teams design better, more natural-looking smiles, and provide case support and products that promote greater accuracy within esthetic dentistry. Heading up our team there are  Dr Francis Coachman, DSD Planning Center Executive Director and Dr Tatiana Coachman, Planning Center Clinical Director. We got the chance to talk to them about all the exciting things that happened in 2019.

We multiplied our service offerings

Drs Francis and Tatiana Coachman explain: “2019 was a very busy year for us at the DSD Planning Center. But one of our biggest achievements has been the structural and organizational changes we have made to improve our service. 

Our team has grown to 30 people and this is likely to rise in 2020 as the company grows and the number of cases submitted to us increases.

We also implemented our customer support team, which means we’re able to offer a better service and give greater support to our clients, with customer satisfaction rising through the year.”

We helped dentists to deliver better cases

“In 2019, we were able to provide over 4,300 hours of support to our customers and we worked on an amazing 7946 completed cases,” Tatiana explains.

“We also helped create 4,230 smile designs, which is at the heart of what we do here at DSD Planning Center. The facially-driven smile design concept was born in 2009 and grows every year with our company. In 2019, 302 of cases submitted to us opted for full, interdisciplinary treatment planning; designing smiles in complete collaboration with DSD.”

We teamed up with Align Technology

DSD’s collaboration with Invisalign® resulted in the integration of their powerful aligner technology with DSD workflows. In 2019, 726 cases processed by the DSD Planning Center incorporated Invisalign for tooth movement and alignment.

In addition, the DSD Planning Center became an official provider of the Invisalign® Treatment Planning Service, giving dentists an accurate and efficient route to treatment planning their clear aligner therapy cases. 

DSD advocates the importance of intraoral scanners in the dental clinic for more accurate treatment. Align Technology’s iTero scanner is recommended and showcased at most DSD education events and many DSD dentists have invested in this equipment for their clinics. This is evident by the increasing number of cases submitted to the DSD Planning Center where the patient documentation includes iTero scans; In 2019, 452 cases were submitted with iTero scans.

In 2020 the DSD Planning Center expects to see an increase in Lite Dentistry cases, which is a restorative solution using Invisalign® and DSD Direct composite bonding. “We predict there will be a large demand for this in 2020, as it’s much simpler and more affordable to apply than the current time-consuming method used by practitioners,” Francis adds. 

We extended our global reach

“In 2019, we served 878 dentists, helping them provide better patient care and treatments. This includes anything from producing a one-off clinical product to a full smile design. Our client base is very international, too. We support practitioners all the way from Turkey to Taiwan across 72 different countries and in our team of 30 people there is a great mix of nationalities too,” Tatiana concludes. 

DSD 3D Printing Lab

George Cabanas, Director of DSD R&D and Printing Center, is responsible for DSD 3D Printing Lab in Spain. Here is what he believes are Lab’s biggest achievements from the past year.

We unveiled the DSD 3D Printing Lab

“In 2019, we opened the DSD 3D Printing Lab. The purpose of the Lab is to manufacture all the printable products that DSD designs. The implementation plan for the Lab was to gradually phase in the manufacture of DSD products. We initially started printing models for mockups and manufacturing the PVS indexes, followed by the shells and surgical guides. 

From December 2019, the Lab now manufactures 100% of the printable products that DSD designs, all with DSD’s standards of excellence. Having an in-house manufacturing facility that's perfectly aligned with DSD’s principles and philosophy is a significant and unique advantage for us and ensures a much higher quality product. In addition to manufacturing these products, the Lab also provides direct feedback to the DSD Planning Center on ways to improve its designs.”

The Lab in numbers

“The DSD 3D Printing Lab manufactures 20% of all the designs that the DSD Planning Center plans. The other 80% is manufactured primarily by our clients in-house or by their own labs. Over the next few years, we expect to be producing more designs for our clients and manufacture an even greater number of products. We’re also paving the way to be able to remotely print the products directly in each doctor’s office, so watch out for more information on this in the coming months.”

We’re always working on improving our Clic Guides

The DSD Clic Guide allows practitioners to place implants and prostheses with expert precision.

“We’ve invested a great deal of effort and energy in improving the Clic Guide and we’re now slowly implementing two changes that will ensure the guide is even more precise. The amount of Clic Guides ordered in 2019 increased substantially and we’re preparing and looking forward to manufacturing all of them in 2020.”

“2019 proved to be a very successful year for both the DSD Planning Center and DSD 3D Printing Lab and we saw fantastic growth in these areas of the business over the year. However, this also brought with it a lot of growing pains and challenges that we’ve been working hard to overcome. We predict that 2020 is going to be an amazing yet demanding year for all parts of DSD.”

“But all of this would not be possible without our clients, who trust in the DSD methods and ideas and we want to say a big thank you to those of you who have supported the PC and Lab this year. We hope to continue working with you in the new year and we also hope that we’ll be collaborating with more of you in 2020,” he concludes.

If you would like to learn more about the DSD Planning Center and DSD Lab, and how they can help you to implement an interdisciplinary, digital workflow in your clinic, visit the DSD Website.