Glidewell Laboratories

01 the short story

By having a UR5 robot tend four CNC machines milling dental crowns, Glidewell laboratories in California was able to optimize a substantial part of the production cycle. Now, four more robots are on their way.

02 the challenge

Producing the perfect crown is complicated process. It usually takes five days from when a dentist sends an impression of a patient’s teeth to the lab, until the finished crown returns. Glidewell Laboratories in Newport Beach, California, wanted to optimize this process.

The main challenge was a 10-minute milling cycle, which made it unfeasible to have an operator stationed at the machine. Instead, the lab manually inserted the crowns in batches of 15 each, which only needed to be done every two hours.

David Leeson, engineering manager at Glidewell, believed an intelligent automation solution could ensure a more fluent process and soon his research led him to Universal Robots:

“I had followed the collaborative robot development for a while, and hearing that the UR robots were used at BMW was a vote of confidence in this new type of robot”, Leeson says.

03 the solution

The company decided to try out a UR5 robot. It was easily programmed to pick a crown from the dispensers, place it in the milling lathe, pick it back out, and place it on a conveyor after the 10 minute milling cycle.

By communicating with a vision camera, the robot was programmed to move on to a different shade if dispensers run out, ensuring fluent production. Overall, this dynamic, single part flow has cut the production-cycle time from 27 to 18 hours, saving two milling operators per shift.