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Case Studies > LightForce Orthodontics Brings to Market Fully-Custom Dental Braces

LightForce Orthodontics Brings to Market Fully-Custom Dental Braces

Technology Category
  • Analytics & Modeling - Generative AI
  • Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
  • Functional Applications - Product Lifecycle Management Systems (PLM)
Applicable Industries
  • Healthcare & Hospitals
Applicable Functions
  • Product Research & Development
  • Quality Assurance
Services
  • Software Design & Engineering Services
  • System Integration
  • Training
The Challenge
LightForce Orthodontics faced a significant challenge in scaling their operations due to the time-consuming design process of their patient-specific dental braces. The legacy CAD software they were using lacked the ability to track the progress of the multistep design workflow, making it difficult to repeat workflows quickly and error-free. This bottleneck in the design step was preventing LightForce from expanding their business and meeting the growing demand for their custom dental devices. Additionally, training new employees on the advanced software was proving to be tricky, tedious, and time-consuming, further hindering their ability to scale efficiently.
About The Customer
LightForce Orthodontics is a design and manufacturing company specializing in dental devices, founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2015. Their mission is to revolutionize dentistry with their patient-specific braces. LightForce offers an online portal where orthodontists can upload 3D scans of patients’ mouths to determine the position of each individual bracket of a wire brace. The company generates custom designs for the brackets and installation trays, 3D prints all components, and ships them to clinics for application. LightForce aims to improve patient outcomes, reduce installation time, and increase comfort with their innovative dental solutions.
The Solution
To address the design bottleneck, LightForce Orthodontics leveraged the design automation capabilities of nTopology. By shifting from their legacy CAD software to nTopology, they gained visibility into each step of the design process, allowing users to repeat workflows quickly and error-free. This transition reduced the manual design time for patient-specific braces from 10 hours to 3 hours. To further reduce design time, LightForce utilized nTopCL, nTopology’s Command Line Interface, to automate the entire design workflow programmatically using scripts, bringing the total design time down to just 10 minutes. Additionally, nTopology’s intuitive and prescriptive nature made it easier to onboard and train new employees, enabling inexperienced team members to swiftly pick up the software and use it to its full potential. The reusable workflows allowed any technician to execute a process designed by an engineer comfortably and error-free.
Operational Impact
  • LightForce Orthodontics significantly reduced the pre-installation time by automating design processes and reusing traceable design workflows.
  • The company overcame the design bottleneck, allowing them to scale their operations and meet the growing demand for their custom dental devices.
  • nTopology’s intuitive and prescriptive nature facilitated the swift onboarding and training of new employees, enhancing the overall efficiency of the team.
Quantitative Benefit
  • Reduced manual design time from 10 hours to 3 hours.
  • Further reduced total design time to 10 minutes using automation.
  • Achieved 33% faster installation of dental braces.

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