For the Life of Your Practice

There seems to be something very different about how things get done at A-dec™. In an industry where change is the only constant, this dental equipment manufacturer has achieved a level of success few dental companies ever reach—which may not be surprising, given A-dec’s reputation for quality and reliability. Look even deeper, and you’ll find the underlying strength of A-dec. Fueling its success and supporting its growth is the company’s ability to harness the power of its employees, strategic partners, and customers.

A-dec was founded in 1964 by husband and wife team Ken and Joan Austin on the simple premise that there is tremendous value in doing things better. Creating better, smarter and easier-to-use dental products has carried A-dec from a humble beginning to its position today as one of the world’s leading dental equipment manufacturers. This drive to improve is a direct reflection of what the company stands for and the values of the people that make up this family-run business. And it’s also helped A-dec grow into the global company it is today, with customers and a network of authorized dealers in more than 100 countries.

Doing Things the A-dec Way
A-dec general manager Scott Parrish, who is the Austin’s son-in-law, attributes a large part of A-dec’s success to the set of principles referred to as The A-dec Way. “We have a unique set of philosophies and business practices that help guide A-dec’s day-to-day activities,” he says. “There are 15 principles in all, but the first is what really drives our company: Concern for people. We try to keep in mind all of the people affected by our operations, from our employees and the community we work in, to our vendor partners, dealers, and distributors—as well as the customer, which includes both doctors and patients.”

Do any kind of research on A-dec, and you’ll find the company practices what it preaches. And if awards and accolades are any indicator, A-dec has achieved both local and national recognition for the way it conducts business. The company has been ranked consistently as one of Oregon’s best places to work and was recently recognized with the Oregon Ethics in Business Award for its business practices. Over the years, A-dec has also received a number of national honors, including the American Dental Association’s Distinguished Service Award and National Entrepreneur of the Year for Manufacturing.

Instituted long before most corporations were formalizing codes of conduct, A-dec’s common sense ideas not only helped make the company a great place to work, but also helped fuel the company’s commercial success. Ken Austin, A dec’s president, believes that the company’s altruism brings achievement full-circle. “We put our employees first, but we find it feeds a very successful cycle. Our employees produce superior products that are easy for our distribution partners to sell, and the profit from those sales goes right back into the company, serving the employees that started the process. This, in turn, supports our concept of quality control, which happens at a personal level since our employees take such pride in their work.”

Parrish points out that contributing to this pride is the fact that nearly 100 percent of A-dec products are built at the company’s Pacific Northwest headquarters in Newberg, Oregon. “With the exception of some specialty parts and our precision-line of handpieces, we do it all right here,” he says. “I think the whole company appreciates what we’re trying to do, and dental practices have rewarded us by acknowledging the high quality of A-dec’s products.”

Quality from Within
A-dec brings as many processes as possible in-house, in order to have more control over quality and, in the end, offer a better product. Walk around A-dec’s 40-acre corporate campus, and you’ll see everything from the production of hydraulic cylinders for dental chairs to an amazing variety of specialty tubing used throughout A-dec chairs and delivery systems.

Austin maintains that the kind of product quality A-dec strives for is truly meant for the life of the dental practice. “For example,” he says, “even on something as seemingly simple as an A-dec dental stool, you’ll find more fasteners than on any other because we intend it to perform as long as the dental practice needs it. I think you’ll also find that our manufacturing tolerances are the tightest in the business. And then we support the product after the sale. We stand behind all of our products. We’ve spent the time and resources to build products that will stand the true test of use in the dental practice environment.”

This focus on customer satisfaction, coupled with the guidance of A-dec’s corporate values, has driven the company’s product development in unique ways. The company takes great care to listen to dental professionals, identifying specific needs and working to find simple solutions that address those needs. As an integral part of A-dec’s unique product development process, customer feedback has driven some of the most successful innovations in the industry. Even from the beginning, when A-dec introduced some of the first equipment designed specifically for sit-down dentistry, its innovations were focused on benefiting dentists’ personal health, as well as productivity.

Austin notes that A-dec started out when dentistry was going through an equipment and treatment protocol revolution. “Belt-driven handpieces were being replaced by the new air turbines and sit-down dentistry was a new idea. Today, the industry again seems poised for major change as new technology becomes available to dental offices at a faster and faster pace.”

A Dental Systems Perspective
With A-dec’s increasing depth and breadth of products, the company still manages to work concurrently on related issues, looking at the bigger picture and often coming up with very unique solutions that take more of a systems approach. “A case in point is A-dec 500,” says Parrish. “We researched each issue our customers brought to us, from water line and asepsis concerns to doctor and patient ergonomics. We focused our greatest efforts on areas that had the largest need for improvement.”

“By addressing the dental operatory as a complex collection of processes and utilizing A-dec’s many areas of expertise, we were able to provide a bigger picture solution that is more flexible and offers more value in one package than even we thought was possible,” says Parrish. “By asking why something is a problem in the first place, and carefully studying how practitioners were approaching a process, we were able to make improvements that in some cases eliminated the problem altogether. For instance, we found that, with different materials and new pressure mapping technology, we could provide both real comfort for patients and better access for the dental team. By addressing the work processes instead of individual features, we’re trying to give practitioners more energy at the end of the day and make it easier to enjoy working with the last patient on the schedule.”

A-dec has focused much attention on the dental unit water system. “Other than sterilization, nothing in the dental office affects the patient as intimately as water,” says Parrish. “We spent a long time designing the water system for A-dec 500, eliminating standing water in the control block and investing the time and resources to develop ICX™, our water treatment tablet. Instead of time consuming water treatments, just drop a tablet in your water supply and away you go. As part of the holistic design approach at A-dec, ICX becomes an integral part of the water system and makes asepsis management much easier for the dental practice.”

“We saw water quality as a critical point in the dental unit design, with immediate consequences for patients,” Austin adds. “And now we’re introducing new tubing that will also contribute to keeping the system clean.”

Focusing on Efficiency
In looking at dental treatment rooms from a systems design perspective, A-dec has found that many efficiencies can be identified by studying all of the processes in a practice. From how the office is organized for individual practice workflow preferences to changes that make cleanup and sterilization between patients more efficient, A-dec works to make improvements that address all of these issues simultaneously. “We build our modular Preference cabinetry line to accommodate the preferred workflow of the dental practice,” says Austin. “There’s nothing more frustrating than purchasing equipment for your office and finding that you have to re-invent how you work to fit it in. Our Preference ICC™ sterilization center is a good example, providing a modular system that conforms to standard sterilization protocols for more efficient use.” The system also offers clear visual cues to where sterile and non-sterile items go, which makes training easier, enhances productivity, and helps improve safety.

A-dec’s systems approach has also improved its own internal processes. The newest manufacturing techniques have made their way to the production floors, where every builder on a production line knows how to perform every operation, for optimum staffing flexibility and maximum uptime. Similar to the space saving designs and work-flow considerations used in A-dec product design, the assembly lines have been set up to use less floor space, utilizing smaller work pods that organize functions into related groups for greater efficiency. And, as you can imagine, handling all the parts that go into A-dec products can be a serious challenge. A-dec employs a high-density storage and retrieval system to efficiently handle parts within the main warehouse operation. While the operator is pulling one part, the carousel system is programmed to bring the next part so it can easily be distributed to the appropriate manufacturing pod in the correct sequence.

Looking to the Future
Reflecting on the power of the new technologies at work at A-dec, Austin and Parrish are looking forward to the challenges of the future. “We’re seeing an explosion of new digital technology in dentistry, and we have worked to build the best platform available to accommodate that technology,” says Austin. Parrish adds: “New display technologies, magnification, integration of video and a myriad of new electronic control possibilities are really pushing the envelope of equipment design right now. We’ve built the A-dec 500 with flexibility for the future. There has never been a chair system that integrates so much of today’s technology with the idea that there’s much more to come. We’re always working to make our systems as flexible and compatible with emerging technologies as possible.”

By keeping the needs of patient, practice and practitioner in mind, A-dec believes they are well positioned to address the future needs of the dental community. “We think there’s still much to be done both for an aging patient population, and an aging population of dentists,” says Parrish. “With the kind of ergonomic advances that have been made over the last several years, dental practitioners of all types are staying in the business longer. Time is incredibly valuable for both patients and doctors. Our focus is on helping to improve dental office efficiency.”

With its 40-year commitment to the improvement of dentistry––and a driving concern for the people who build, sell, service, use and benefit from their equipment––A-dec will continue to do things differently. Ken Austin and Scott Parrish mean it when they say their goal is to provide dental practices with the best designed and most appropriate technology to serve the dental team.

For more information about A-dec, visit www.a-dec.com or call 1-800-547-1883.