Puche Dental Lab is a full-service dental laboratory located in Torrance, California, founded in 1969 and now in business for over 57 years. The lab specializes in a wide range of dental prosthetics, including premier partials, crown and bridge, complete dentures, digital dentures, hard night guards, sports guards, and other custom dental appliances.

 

The lab has long embraced digital transformation – adopting digital impressions, CAD/CAM workflows, and milling machines to increase precision and shorten production timelines. However, until 2025, their night guard production remained constrained by persistent operational challenges.

 

 

The Bottleneck: Designer Shortages, Long Turnaround, and Scaling Pain

 

Before adopting the HeyGears' Pre-polished Splint Batch Solution, Puche Lab ran their night guard production with a conventional in-house workflow.

• Three designers, full-time. Every night guard order required dedicated CAD designers to handle design and nesting – three of them, working full-time, just to keep pace. And even then, it wasn't enough.
• Turnaround stretched to 3-4 days. With limited designers and limited design seats, orders queued up. From order entry to shipment, the process routinely took three to four days – putting Puche at a competitive disadvantage against labs doing it traditionally.
• Scaling meant hiring. To grow, Puche would have needed more designers and more post-processing technicians. But in California, where labor costs are high and skilled talent is scarce, that wasn't a viable path.

 

As L. J. Bignone, the Director of Puche Dental Lab puts it: “In order for us to be able to scale with printing and scale with designers, it was important for us to find a partner and find a relationship that could handle our workload and ease the pain of having to look for technicians, benefits, and wages, and all these things that are incurred when bringing on new labor force.”

 

Puche didn't want to keep hiring. They wanted a smarter workflow.

 

The Solution: HeyGears Pre-polished Splint Batch Solution

 

In November 2025, Puche Lab started a one-month pilot of the HeyGears Pre-polished Splint Batch Solution, moving to full production in December. The technical foundation is a HeyGears A3D printer – built for automated, unattended production. But what truly made the difference was not the hardware alone – it was the full-service design and nesting support from HeyGears.

• Design and pre-processing. Instead of maintaining a large in-house design team, Puche now leverages HeyGears' design team to handle a significant portion of design and pre-processing remotely. The internal team went from three full-time designers to just one.

• Overnight, automated printing. With design work completed during the day, the A3D runs unattended overnight with automated resin refill and part removal. When technicians arrive in the morning, prints are ready – no night shift required.

 

• Post-processing simplified. The A3D and HT module deliver splints with a glossy, pre-polished finish right off the printer.

 

So by shifting design work to HeyGears, Puche freed up valuable bench talent to return to production – where they add the most value. The same work gets done. The people stay. They just do different work now.

 

The Results

• Turnaround cut to 24 hours. Turnaround time dropped from 3-4 days to about 24 hours – giving Puche more room for finishing and quality control on every case.
• Redo rates dropped from 3% to 1%. Fewer redos mean less waste and higher customer satisfaction. Over the course of a year, Puche saw night guard unit counts grow from 40 to 60 per day – a direct reflection of faster turnaround and more reliable product quality.
• Clinical feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Doctors noticed the faster delivery – often receiving night guards within a week of ordering – and responded by sending more cases.
• Predictability - the hidden advantage. The combination of technology and HeyGears' design support delivers consistent, repeatable outcomes. That predictability reduces redo rates, shortens turnaround, and builds trust with doctors.

As L.J. notes: “When a customer can really count on your product, and you can produce that time and time again with a predictable outcome, it's always good for business.”

 

• Better team morale. Faster, more consistent workflows don't just satisfy doctors – they improve life for the lab team. Technicians know exactly how long each case will take, which drives satisfaction across the board.

 

Conclusion: Rethinking Who Does What

 

Puche's transformation offers a broader lesson: the value isn't just in the printer – it's in rethinking how work gets distributed. Design and nesting are handled by HeyGears during business hours. Printing runs unattended overnight. The lab team, freed from repetitive CAD tasks and daytime print monitoring, focuses on higher-value work: customer consultation, case management, and quality assurance.

 

For a lab operating in a competitive market, that kind of reallocation – not machine substitution – is the real driver of sustainable efficiency.

 

If your lab faces designer shortages, extended turnaround times, or the need to scale without adding headcount, the same approach is worth exploring.

 

For more information please contact sales@heygears.com