How are Dental Ventures and 3M Similar?

September 23, 2013

There’s an interesting relationship that exists between 3M and us. Plenty of dentists and labs use their dental lab products, like the Lava line of zirconia for restoratives and crowns. 

3M’s existence is really founded on research and innovation. And one other factor. They know how to look at how their products are being used. Then they use that observation to come up with an innovation that makes those processes smoother and easier.

This is the company that brought the world Scotch tape (their brand name), waterproof sandpaper and the Post-It (also their brand name). Items we completely take for granted.

I like the fact that we work in very similar ways.

3M’s Innovation

Here’s an example of how we are similar. 3M watched consumers using their products and came up with two different adaptations of those products that better suited the way their consumers operated. (It’s amazing how some companies can’t do this.)

They watched people wrapping a stack of presents to see how they use Scotch tape. If you’ve ever done this, you probably did the same thing as these consumers: you tore off a whole bunch of two or three inch strips of tape and stuck them to something slick or smooth that they could be removed from easily. Then as you wrapped presents, you pulled off the prepared tape strips and applied them to the presents.

So 3M came up with a tape dispenser “bracelet.” It has an elastic band that fits around one’s wrist. A tab of tape sticks out of the dispenser and when you pull on it, it’s a few inches long just like you would prepare for yourself.

In the other example, they watched students studying, and noted that they shift back and forth between tabbing pages for review and highlighting text. So, very intuitively, they created a highlighter that has tiny Post-Its flags packaged at the other end.

Just Like 3M, We Watch

We watch our clients shaping, polishing and finishing dental restorations. We note the exact steps they go through. Then time and time again, we develop a product that incorporates multiple steps into one easy process. Like students who don’t have to switch back and forth between study tools, our customers don’t have to switch back and forth between wet and dry workstations or different tools or processes.

Like our HYBrite Polish. You can use this to polish a 3M Ultimate Crown in one step, removing the scratches and bringing out a beautiful shine, all in one step.

We don’t plan to stop any time soon. We’re going to continue to innovate, bringing you new dental lab supplies to make your life easier and your results more pleasing to your patients and customers.

We welcome your input. If you are an innovator like we are, and you have an idea about how to make your work processes faster, give us a call or drop us an email. That could be the birth of a whole new dental product to make another process easier and faster! 

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