The two winners of the SCAD CDT Competition, Jen-Chih Tsai and Hiroaki Tada, traveled directly from Taiwan and the U.S. to VITA Zahnfabrik’s headquarters in the German town of Bad Säckingen, which lies close to the Swiss border. The scheduled three-day training event was set to start the following day. Exclusive views into material production of VITA Zahnfabrik and the complex production of ceramic materials were scheduled first.
An Informative Look Behind the Scenes
SCAD Winners travel to VITA Zahnfabrik
Humans and robots
After a demonstration of the robotic workflow, the two dental technicians were impressed to see how quickly workers were able to manually insert the artificial teeth. After watching, it was a special highlight for them to fabricate their own VITA PHYSIODENS denture teeth. The surprised guests quickly learned that it’s not easy at all to insert dental necks, dentine and enamel into the press molds analogous to a natural tooth anatomy, even for Certified Dental Technicians. The winners kept their self-made sets of VITA PHYSIODENS teeth as souvenirs.
Background knowledge for competition
An inspection of the production of furnaces and digital shade taking devices followed. The structure and function of VITA furnaces and the VITA Easyshade V were carefully explained and demonstrated. In a final scientific lecture, Anne Stephan, marketing manager for shade communication, provided new insights into color perception theory and the functional principle of digital dental shade determination with the VITA Easyshade V. With his presentation “Aspects of Material Science about Zirconia and VITA VM 9 Veneering Ceramic,” Dr. Michael J. Tholey, Head of Technical Service, supplied the participants with detailed background knowledge about the materials they were going to use for the live workshop with a patient.