Running a dental lab production board, from whiteboard to software

A production board answers three questions about every case in the lab. Where is it, when is it due, and is anything stopping it.

A whiteboard can do that for a small lab. A spreadsheet takes it further, and software further again. The rules that make a board work are the same for all three.

This guide covers what a board has to show, how each kind works, and when to move from one to the next.

What a board has to show

A board is case tracking made visible. For every case, seven things should be readable at a glance.

Leave everything else on the Rx. A board crowded with detail is harder to read than the pan itself.

Choose your stages

Stages are the columns of the board. Fewer is better.

For what a practice sees, four are enough: new, in production, ready and out for delivery.

Four stages are enough for what a practice sees

A flow of the four stages a practice sees, in order: New, In Production, Ready and Out for Delivery.

1. 1

   New

2. 2

   In Production

3. 3

   Ready

4. 4

   Out for Delivery

Inside the lab you may want more. Add a column only where a case changes hands, such as from models to milling, or from finishing to shipping.

Test each column. If a case could sit there for two days and nobody would need to know, merge it with its neighbour.

Keep “on hold” as a flag and never as a column. A held case is still at a stage, and the board should show both.

Four kinds of board

Labs use four kinds, often two at once. Each one suits a size of lab.

The whiteboard

A whiteboard is where many boards start, and for good reason.

• Everyone sees it. It is on the wall, with no login.
• It is instant. A marker and two seconds.
• It costs nothing.

It works for a lab where everyone is in one room and the case count fits on one wall.

Its limits are just as plain.

• It forgets. Once a case is wiped, nothing shows it was ever late.
• It lives on the wall. The owner at home, and the practice on the phone, cannot see it.
• It depends on handwriting and memory. A case nobody wrote up does not exist.

Many labs pair it with the pans themselves. A rack with a shelf for each ship day is a board you can touch.

The pan rack

The case pan is the oldest tracking system in the trade. Used with care, it still works.

Sort pans by due date, with one shelf or row for each day. Today’s shelf is the plan for the bench.

Add coloured tags for what the eye should catch first.

• One colour for a rush
• One for a case on hold
• One for a remake

The rack shows physical work well and digital work badly. A case that arrived as a scan has no pan until someone makes one.

Print a slip for every digital case and give it a pan on the day it arrives. Otherwise half your work is invisible on the rack.

The spreadsheet

A shared spreadsheet adds what the wall lacks: sorting, history and remote access.

Use one row for each case, with the seven things from the table above as columns. Sort by due date each morning.

It suits a lab with one or two people at intake. It can be read from anywhere, and last month is still there.

It starts to strain when several people update it at once, or when nobody at the bench has a screen within reach.

It also stays inside the lab. A practice still has to phone to learn what the sheet says.

Software

A software board looks like the whiteboard, with cards in columns. The difference is what happens around it.

• Cases arrive on it. A digital case appears without anyone typing it in.
• Moves are recorded. Who moved a case, and when, is kept.
• Dates are watched. A case close to its date and still in an early stage stands out.
• Practices can see their own cases. The status call has an answer before it is made.

It asks more of the team. Every move has to be made on a screen, at the moment of the handoff.

Put a screen where the work changes hands. A board that can only be updated from the office will be updated once a day.

The four side by side

No row makes one of them right for every lab. The last two rows are the trade a growing lab ends up weighing.

Rules that make any board work

The tool matters less than six habits.

1. One board. If the wall and the sheet both exist, pick the one that counts.
2. Update at the handoff. The person passing the case on moves it, before they pick up the next one.
3. Every case, on the day it arrives. Scans included.
4. Mark holds with a reason. “Waiting for shade photo” tells the next person what to do.
5. Stand at the board each morning. Five minutes, the whole team, reading today’s and tomorrow’s cases aloud.
6. Clear finished cases the day they ship. A board full of shipped work hides the live ones.

Add a sweep at the end of the day. One person checks that the board matches the bench.

A board kept this way answers the owner’s morning question without a walk round the lab.

When to move up

Each kind of board gives clear signs when the lab has outgrown it.

• Cases no longer fit on the wall
• Digital cases are being missed because they have no pan
• Someone asks what happened to a case last month, and nobody can say
• Practices phone for status several times a day
• Two people give different answers about the same case

One of these is a prompt to tidy up. Two or three together mean the next kind of board will pay for itself.

Spreadsheets, email and text vs case management software covers how to switch without stopping the bench.

The numbers a good board produces are covered in dental lab KPIs worth tracking every week.

A board both sides can read

A lab’s board tends to stop at the lab’s door. The practice waiting on the case sees none of it.

On Tusko, the lab’s board is called the Floor. It shows each case by stage, practice and due date, and each practice sees where its own cases are.

See how it works for labs. For the calls a visible board removes, read how dental labs can cut “where’s my case?” calls.