Laboratory Workflow.
Practices generally know what they send and what comes back. What happens in between shapes almost every decision the laboratory makes, and it is worth understanding.
Receipt and inspection
The first thing that happens to a case is that somebody looks at it properly. Is the prescription complete and internally consistent? Is the margin identifiable around its full circumference? Does the bite record seat on the casts without rocking? Is the opposing arch complete?
This is deliberately at the front, because almost every problem that can be traced to the records is cheapest to resolve before any work has been done. It is also where most calls to practices originate.
For digital cases the equivalent inspection is of the file: margin visibility, holes in the data, insertion axis, and whether the bite alignment produces contacts consistent with the case.
Models and dies
On a conventional case the impression is poured, the model sectioned, and the dies trimmed so the margin is exposed and unambiguous. The margin is marked, and die spacer applied to the axial surfaces while stopping short of the finish line.
Every one of those steps introduces a small opportunity for error, which is part of the argument for digital submission. It is also skilled work: a die trimmed too aggressively removes the margin, and one trimmed timidly leaves it obscured.
Digital cases skip this, though many still have a model printed where contacts and emergence need to be assessed physically.
Design
Whether by hand in wax or on screen in CAD, this is where the restoration is actually determined — its contour, its occlusal scheme, its contacts, its emergence.
The technician is working from the prescription, the records and whatever clinical intent was communicated. Where those are complete, design is execution. Where they are not, design involves inference, and inference is where restorations end up technically correct and clinically wrong.
On a layered case the design stage also determines the substructure — how the framework will support the ceramic that goes over it, which is the single biggest determinant of whether that ceramic chips later.
Substructure and verification
Frameworks and copings are produced, fitted to the die and assessed before anything is built on top. A framework that fits but does not follow the reduced anatomy will leave veneering ceramic unsupported, so both fit and form are checked.
At Fairmont this is one of two points where cases are inspected under the microscope — after the wax-up and again after the frame is finished — so the degree of fit is verified before aesthetic work is committed to.
Correcting a framework at this stage costs relatively little. Discovering the problem after veneering costs the whole restoration.
Ceramic work, or milling and finishing
A layered restoration is built in successive applications of porcelain, each fired separately, with the form refined between firings. Several cycles are normal, and each takes time in the furnace that cannot be shortened — the ramp, hold and cool are determined by the material.
Slow cooling in particular exists for a specific reason: zirconia conducts heat poorly, and a thick veneer cooled quickly retains residual stress that surfaces months later as a chip.
A monolithic restoration takes a different path — milled or pressed, then stained, characterized and either glazed or mechanically polished. Fewer stages, but the finishing is where the quality sits.
Where the time actually goes
Rarely where practices assume. Furnace cycles, curing, setting and cooling are fixed by the materials and cannot be compressed by working harder.
The largest variable is not fabrication at all — it is waiting for an answer. A case that raises a question stops until the practice responds, and a query raised on a Friday and answered the following Wednesday has cost most of a week irrespective of anyone's speed.
Components that must be ordered are the other significant variable, particularly on implant cases where the system was not identified on the prescription.
Final inspection and dispatch
Contacts are checked against the adjacent teeth as recorded. Occlusion is verified on the articulator in intercuspation and excursion. Contour and emergence are assessed. Surface finish is confirmed.
Then the practical checks: that what is in the box matches the prescription, that returned records are included, and that anything needed at seating travels with the case. Every appliance and product is disinfected before it leaves the laboratory, and alloy identification certificates are provided for your records.
Cases are shipped by UPS and Purolator to practices throughout British Columbia and across Canada.
Who actually works on a case
A restoration is rarely the work of one person. Model work, design, substructure production, ceramic application and finishing are frequently handled by different technicians, each specializing in an area rather than each doing everything.
That specialization is what makes results repeatable — a ceramist building porcelain every day produces more consistent work than one who does it occasionally between other tasks. It also means a case passes through several hands internally, and each of those transfers relies on what was recorded rather than remembered.
The practical consequence for a practice is that a note on the prescription reaches everyone who needs it, whereas something mentioned on the phone may not. Both are useful; only one is reliable.
What this means for the practice
Three things follow. Send complete information, because incompleteness costs days rather than minutes. Answer queries quickly, because a case is stopped while it waits. And recognize that some stages have a floor — a layered anterior restoration built over several firings genuinely takes longer than a monolithic posterior unit, and no amount of urgency changes that.
Knowing where the time goes also makes the conversation easier. A practice that understands why a case is taking a given period is in a position to plan around it, rather than experiencing it as an unexplained delay.
In short
- Records are inspected first because that is where correction is cheapest
- Design is where clinical intent either arrives or has to be inferred
- Frameworks are verified before veneering; correction afterwards costs the restoration
- Furnace cycles are fixed by the material and cannot be compressed
- The largest time variable is waiting for an answer to a query
More on clinical
Discuss a case
Where a case sits between options, a short conversation before preparation is usually quicker than resolving it afterwards.