Every year the Trade Show, whether it be at the NEC or Excel, seems to have a dominant thread. In the past it has included computers, private practice plans and digital radiography.
This year I have been surprised by the number of laboratories that are exhibiting. The one thing that all the new names have in common is that the work is being done by technicians in China. I am assured that the quality of work is as good as that produced in the UK but, I have also been told, that as this is “a price driven market” the fees charged are “very competitive”.
When I was in full time practice I preferred to receive from a lab the professional attention and service that I like to think I gave my patients. I would have had problems justifying the use of an overseas service but I’m just one.
Contrast this with the conversation I had with a German technician who was producing superb precision attahed denture work but having had his prices undercut by the overseas competition is here walking about and trying to drum up business for himself, lovely man but ploughing a very lonely furrow.
To paraphrase John Ruskin “never buy on price alone”.
The Incisal Edge 