New Business Models Bring Challenge and Change

Life changed dramatically for Donna Pickett's laboratory in Taylorsville, Utah, when she added milling services and became a zirconia distribution center.

For more than 10 years, it was just the two of them: Donna Pickett, owner of Broadway Dental Lab in Taylorsville, Utah, and her son, Sullivan Heward, fabricating conventional PFMs. And when dentist-clients started prescribing zirconia restorations in 2007, she subcontracted the work to a nearby laboratory.
But as the lab's zirconia business increased, so did the subcontracting costs and Pickett had to reevaluate her business model. Embracing digital technology, Heward decided to learn everything he could about milling zirconium. He did a lot of research and, in 2008, the laboratory purchased a 3Shape scanner, five-axis milling system and two sintering ovens, and added milling services to its repertoire.

"It was a scary move for a two-person laboratory to...