Additive Manufacturing adoption in Dental Practices

Additive Manufacturing is an innovative production technology belonging to the latest Industrial Revolution, the era of digitalization, also known as Industry 4.0. The diffusion of 3D printing is moving fast, and it is already considered a viable manufacturing technology across industries such as aerospace, biomedical and manufacturing. The aim of this thesis is to describe the actual economical and technical scenario of Additive Manufacturing with particular attention to the Dental sector. The crucial part of the paper concerns an analysis conducted in the Palermo area to understand the level of diffusion of additive manufacturing technologies in dental offices. For these purposes, a detailed questionnaire was developed and then submitted to a sample of dentists. To have a clear general picture, the technician sector was also investigated to understand the level of adherence to the new production technology in these laboratories. The analysis of the collected data provided interesting considerations on the future opportunities of additive manufacturing in this sector. The first chapter provides a general description of the AM technology, explaining its discovery, the 3d printing process starting from its discovery, the different phases that make up the generic 3d printing process and the technologies currently in use. The second chapter deals with the economic aspects of Additive technology, highlighting the advantages and the limits that characterize it with reference to the different field of application. The following chapters, the third and the fourth, concern a specific Dental sector. The third focuses on the changes that the digital environment and specifically the AM production methods can bring to the traditional workflow, while the fourth analyzes the benefits and the economic effects of the digital in-office production switch. The last chapter analyzes the answers that dentists on one hand and dental technicians on the other have given to the questionnaires, advancing conclusions on the actual adoption status of AM in the Sicilian administrative center.