EVIDENT LAB SOFTWARE. FULLY DIGITISING OUR LAB. BY JOHN BEVAN, GENERAL MANAGER COMMERCIAL – S4S DENTAL LAB Leave a comment

At S4S we were always keen to be ahead of the bell curve in terms of being first to try out new technology. Our journey into the digital world started in 2005 when we looked in to digitising our plaster room. We knew digital was the future of dentistry and as a lab we knew we could be more efficient by going digital in all areas.
The next stage was to digitise paperwork, this avoided trips to the basement looking through dusty old archives if we ever got questions about previous cases or looking at old purchase orders or invoices.
We started out using Quickbooks for our booking in and out of cases, our commercial director Neil Bullement had a significant amount of experience with Quickbooks and with my previous knowledge we managed to use Quickbooks successfully until 2019. Due to our client base creeping up to as many as 10,000 customers, Quickbooks began creaking at the seams. We had as many as 30 staff at any one time accessing the accounts data. Our directors and marketing team were wanting to have a more sophisticated and easier way of generating reports and tracking customer buying journeys. Whilst our laboratory manager and his team wanted a better way to run the laboratory and have software help with scheduling and work tracking.
Our research continued up to the official launch of Evident on 1st October 2019. This took us on a journey all across the world ending up in Canada. Well, initially it took us to Ripon to see Steven Campbell at Nexus Dental Laboratory in 2017. He showed us how he had implemented Evident into his lab and how it had helped his workflow.
We trialled a large number of software options and found that the majority of these had limitations. They could manage production but then would not offer cloud storage or vice versa. We realised very quickly that implementing a brand new piece of software and system of this complexity would require a lot of planning and it would not happen overnight. This was mainly due to the size of our customer and product file and that we were creating as many as 1000 transactions per day.

EVIDENT TICKED ALL THE BOXES AND NOW OFFERS OUR CLIENTS:

• Unlimited ‘cloud based’ storage of 3D study models
• Customer gateway where customers can upload files, view active or past cases, make payments, print copy invoices and much more
• Full lab traceability (showing exactly where a case is currently in the lab or where it has been)
• Barcoded processing of stages and work completion
• Production planning
• Measure return rates
• Monitor productivity

Following our integration with Evident we are truly ‘fully digital’. Each technician has a tablet or PC on their workstation where they can access all paperwork for a case. This is made possible by clients paperwork and records being photographed by the administrator on arrival. This really helps when a clients phones up to discuss a case the moment it is booked in.
The biggest test has been Coronavirus. During lockdown, the Evident software enabled us to continue to be able to support our clients from home, or anywhere with an internet connection. It has also helped by allowing staff to work from home. Digital models can now be prepared from anywhere in the world, starting the moment a case becomes live on Evident.
There is a lot of work that must be done in order to set up Evident correctly. However, the more you put in the more you get out. Although there are simpler systems to implement, we found that Evident provided much more functionality and options to provide a bespoke system for our lab. The production planning allows us to see how many staff hours we have in relation to the amount of work we have in, this is so important when you are managing the work of 60 or more team members including technicians and digital administrators.
We have included a barcoding system, every team member can use a scanner to access the cases details within the click of the scanner trigger. When each case is booked in on Evident we are able to attach a digital photograph of the prescription, attach any files such as STLs to the case and any case specific notes for the technicians or administration staff.
From a marketing and customer service point of view, we have just started to use the in built CRM to help us track the customer journey and manage our sales funnel and marketing much better. For our directors and management team, there is access to unlimited reports for accounting and performance analysis.
We are delighted with Evident, it has been a long journey to get to where we are today, the team at Evident and particularly Derek, have been amazing in helping us get the most out of the software. They have created many bespoke elements of the software to suit our needs and they are always keen to improve the software.