Enhance the processing and management efficiency of Dental Laboratory by the strategy of Productivity 4.0

Abstract

Due to advances in medicine, the societies have become aging, which leads to the problem of missing teeth. Missing teeth negatively affects not only external appearance but also personal dietary habits. Therefore, it has become an important issue in dentistry to solve the problem of missing teeth. In Taiwan, dental prostheses for missing teeth are produced by dental technicians in dental laboratories. The traditional production of dental prostheses is labor consuming. But the need for human power in dental laboratories will not be satisfied in the future due to low human birth rate. Therefore, it is necessary to decrease the need for human power in this area by strategies of Productivity 4.0. In this study, we plan to improve the managing efficiency of traditional dental prosthesis production in dental laboratories. Firstly the material of denture and environmental parameters of lab will be gathered by the framework of Internet of Things (IoT). Then data mining will be used to improve the efficiency of inventory management. In this case, the concept of Productivity 4.0 can be successfully applied to the production of dental prostheses.