Perhaps it was Pilsner’s strong background in philosophy as a seminary student of six years studying to be a priest that prepared him to operate a successful business in such a close-knit community as dentistry. Regardless, his entry into this industry was rather unorthodox.

After leaving the seminary, he searched for a job that would earn him enough money during the day to pursue a business degree at night. He was hired by a local dental laboratory owner on the promise that Pilsner would give him a month’s notice before he left. But Pilsner didn’t leave. He liked working with his hands, and he loved the fact that every case was different.

He also discovered that the logic and ethical concepts he learned studying philosophy better served him in this people-focused industry than the business courses he was taking at night. He quit school, worked hard, and in 1972 opened his own laboratory in Waunakee, Wis., near Madison.

In the beginning, he was the business, picking up cases, taking them back to the laboratory to complete, and then delivering them to clients himself. To help him out, Pilsner’s grandmother came out of retirement to answer the phones and later to pick up and deliver cases. As the business grew, his wife Sally quit her job to also work full-time at the laboratory. Pilsner’s business flourished and in 1982, he opened a second branch in Baraboo, Wis., and in 2005, a third in Mondovi. A fourth location in Watertown serves strictly as a centralized pickup point for the greater Milwaukee area and delivers cases to the Waunakee location.

Today, at 64, Pilsner thinks little of retiring. Revitalized by the challenges that CAD/CAM technology presents and the digital opportunities it opens up, he and his business partners meet every September to develop their business strategy for the coming year.

We sat down with Pilsner in his Waunakee location to talk about his acquisition of the 3M ESPE Lava CAD/CAM system and how 3M’s expanding CAD/CAM options have opened new opportunities for his business.

Pilsner: The way we look at it, we bought into a company. 3M has the marketing dollars, the research dollars, and the legal support to be sustainable in a competitive marketplace. When we make any investment, whether it’s a porcelain furnace or a CAD/CAM system, we want to make sure that the company we partner with is not only selling the highest-quality product available but also has the know-how behind that product. We also like 3M’s philosophy that this is a partnership and that we are in this together.

Pilsner: We didn’t buy the Lava CAD/CAM system to be an outsource milling center. That business model posed a financial risk we didn’t want to take on. Plus, it’s far more profitable for us if we layer porcelain on the milled copings we produce.

After we built a solid profit center for our milled zirconia-based restorations with new and existing customers, we began producing zirconia frameworks and copings for other labs, which has become an added-value revenue stream to our core business.

Pilsner: We looked at our existing client base and who on that list we could convert to zirconia and what new clients we could attract. Within two months, we were producing 13 to 15 units a day.

Pilsner: Absolutely. My personal belief is that any capital investment should pay for itself within two to three years. This is particularly important when the investment is an evolving technology. I wanted our business to be in a position to invest in the next-generation technology when it came to market.

Pilsner: Figuring out the workflow to optimize the running capabilities of the milling machine was one of our greatest challenges. Although we still are producing the same basic products, we are using completely different processes. We have the Lava milling unit here and two 3D Systems wax printers. These CAD/CAM systems are capable of running almost 24/7 with minimal supervision. So we had to figure out how to set up workflow patterns and employee hours to best serve the efficiencies and productivity of these units. Some of the solutions we worked out are just now showing up on our profit-and-loss sheet.

Pilsner: 3M created a connection from the Lava Scan ST Design System to the 3D Systems InvisionDP wax/resin printer to print 3D wax copings, full anatomical crowns, and bridge frameworks, which is revolutionizing the casting and pressing process. Not only has this opened new markets for us, but also we have found that because of the high quality of the scan input from the Lava Scan ST, the precision of the wax patterns is much higher than what we got with our previous scanner. We use the printer to produce scanned and designed wax copings for casting or for doing simultaneous split designs of the coping and anatomical crown for pressing. The split-file design and press technique has proven to be our second-best profit center. We also produce printed wax copings and anatomical forms for other laboratories. Any laboratory with a 3M scanner can send digital files directly to the printer. We retrieve the printed coping and ship it back to the laboratory customer.

Pilsner: Yes. I’m very excited about the new possibilities the chairside scanner opens up for us as well as the advantage this gives us over competitively priced zirconia products. Right now, we have nine accounts working with the scanner and are getting good results. We very carefully introduced the scanner to select accounts who were doing a lot of single crowns and had integrated computers or other digial technologies into their practices.

Pilsner: The beauty of the chairside scanner is that the dentist can immediately see on screen what he or she has captured and can make adjustments to the prep or rescan, if necessary. We get several scans a day from our clients and although it’s too early to come to any conclusions, the zirconia crowns we have produced so far have required few chairside adjustments.

Pilsner: 3M has opened up the Lava architecture to new markets for investors, from Atlantis custom abutments and printed 3D wax copings to receiving digital files from chairside. Soon, we will be able to mill porcelain full-contour crowns and bond them to a ziconia framework. Looking at all these new possibilities, I don’t think there is a more exciting time to be involved in this industry!