Many Americans still buy into the notion that the vast majority of the manufacturing output of China is both mass-produced and quality-challenged. This assumption is by no means justified in all cases, and couldn't be further from the truth with respect to dental appliances.
In fact, Chinese-made crowns, bridges and dentures often surpass dental prosthetics built anywhere else in the world in the vital areas of beauty, fit and material excellence. Like it or not, this can hold true even when Chinese dental prosthetics are compared to those produced in the U.S.
Most dentists have four priorities in choosing their labs: beauty, fit, turnaround time, and pricing, in that order. The better lab sources will stand out in all four categories, and these days the work produced by carefully chosen, master Chinese dental lab technicians also fits that bill.
With thousands of dental labs in the U.S. competing for their share of the appliance market, attention to beauty has become more important than ever.
Few have pursued the issue of beauty as relentlessly as lab technician Jeb Bates, a southern gentleman from Georgia, whose pursuit, coupled with a series of fortuitous events and connections, allowed him to establish the first and only American-owned dental lab in China, something even the largest labs have been unable to accomplish.
As President of Southern Craft Dental Laboratory Inc., a certified dental laboratory based in Gainesville, Ga., Bates takes this cutting edge role with a high degree of responsibility, not only for the dentists for whom he manufactures appliances and their patients, but for the 300 plus Chinese technicians who form the central core of the team responsible for developing prosthetics of unrivaled beauty.
"One of the biggest misconceptions held about Chinese-made products is the idea that cheap labor automatically equates to cheaply-made merchandise," said Bates.
"This is light-years from reality in the case of dental prosthetics. The best Chinese dental lab technicians are young, eager and talented. They're willing and able to do a better job. To dentists, the payoff of that proposition is simple. You get exceptional work that is also affordable."
A legacy of excellence
Through the centuries Chinese artisans of all types have earned a well-deserved reputation for quality-mindedness and scrupulous attention to detail. A significant number of the products pouring out of China today reflect this long-tradition; exquisite hand-made furniture, for example, and a great variety of equally well-crafted arts and home accessories.
The controversy surrounding the current wave of Chinese imports is reminiscent of the concern over Japanese products in the fifties and early sixties. Concepts regarding mass-produced Japanese "junk" turned around with time, and the same will eventually hold true for many of the products "Made in China."
According to Bates, no opinion reversal is necessary in the case of Chinese dental appliances, as the superiority of the best of the breed is already self-evident. That is not to say that all Chinese dental prosthetics are created equal.
Many dentists are justifiably skeptical of Chinese dental labs that skimp on production and material quality in their haste to turn a profit. A surprising number of U.S. labs already outsource to China but some get burned when the companies they deal with engage in blatantly fraudulent practices such as substituting low-grade metal for gold. The trick, Bates said, is to connect with the right vendor, or in the case of Southern Craft Dental Lab, to be the right vendor.
A foot in the door
American enterprises attempting to set up shop in China must travel a nearly non-navigable labyrinth of political and bureaucratic hassle. Few have made the journey successfully, as it is more a matter of who you know than how much money you have.
But without ownership, a U.S. dental lab outsourcing to China cannot oversee the production of the items promised to their clients--the dentists--and guarantee excellence.
Operating as American Sky Dental Lab Company Ltd. in the city of Zhuhai in Guangdong Province, the lab not only trains its own technicians, it provides all the materials with which they work their magic. As the most important asset of the lab is its technicians and their artistry, those who work there are paid well, and are additionally given free housing and free insurance, reflecting Bates' standards of being a vendor with a conscience.
In actuality, American ownership has done much to allay the skepticism of dentists who might otherwise be very wary of any product literally created on the other side of the world.
"Southern Craft Dental does a ton of crown, bridge and porcelain work for me, and when the company passes an order along to one of his Chinese techs it comes back beautiful," said Doctor Gary Padgett, DDS, of Citrus Dental Associates, P.A., a Florida-based practice with offices in Inverness and Lecanto. "The appliance actually looks like teeth, not some bulky imitation."
The Chinese prosthetics fit just as they should, with little or no fiddling required, Padgett continued. The embrasure spaces look great too, and there's rarely if ever a need for contact or occlusal adjustment.
"The company's prices are also an excellent value," he added. "Turnaround is great, amazingly so given the fact that the appliances are made in Asia. The bottom line is that I keep working with Southern Craft because working with Southern Craft works. I get a quality product at an affordable price, and my orders are filled in a hurry."
You want it when?
When dealing with Chinese dental labs, turnaround is not a deal-breaker but a deal-maker, Bates explained. Orders usually come back from American Sky in preposterously short order, beating the time not only of the majority of labs operating within U.S. borders but the guy down the street.
This minor miracle is achievable thanks in small part to the existence of international carrier services such as FedEx. The lion's share of the credit, however, is owed to the Chinese labs themselves which operate on a 24/7 basis.
"American labs work an 8-hour day," Bates continued. "In China they're at it day, and night. We're not talking sweatshop here but flextime. The Chinese techs work in shifts, which give the labs an enormous efficiency advantage. An American lab can take up to three weeks to fill an order.
"In China they can FedEx your order, and get the whole case back to you in forty-eight hours, or a comparable six working days in the United States. Customers very much appreciate that level of efficiency, which coupled with high-quality and low cost makes for a win-win situation for everyone involved."
For more information, contact Southern Craft Dental Laboratories Inc. in Gainesville, Ga., at (770) 536-7554 or visit www.scdentallab.com.
