Delcam receives Queen’s Award from Lord-LieutenantThe Award was made in recognition of Delcam’s continuous development of its software for the design and manufacture of dental restorations. The Queen

Delcam was today presented with its latest Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category by Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of West Midlands, Paul Sabapathy CBE. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) July 07, 2010 - The Award was made in recognition of Delcam’s continuous development of its software for the design and manufacture of dental restorations. The Queen’s Awards are the UK’s most coveted commercial awards, with only a small percentage of those who enter each year measuring up to the demanding standards required to win an Award.

This latest recognition for the company follows the receipt of Queen’s Awards for ArtCAM in 2003 and for PowerINSPECT in 2004. It provides further evidence that Delcam has not only the largest development team in the CAM industry but also one of the most successful in developing innovative technology. Delcam has also received two Queen’s Awards in the International Trade category.

Delcam’s involvement in the dental area began several years ago when companies in the industry started to use the company’s PowerMILL CAM system for the machining of restorations. The software gave immediate benefits, both in the time in which machining data could be generated, and in the speed and quality of the machining operations.

However, this early experience showed that it was difficult for dental technicians with no previous experience in CADCAM to use the system. This was partly because they were unfamiliar with the terminology being used and so found the program difficult to learn. Also, although the wide range of machining strategies within the software helped to ensure the high quality of the results, the inexperienced users found it difficult to select the correct options. This meant that programming took longer than should have been necessary and that the results were not as good as they could have been.

It was apparent that a dedicated piece of software was needed for the dental industry; one that retained the power of PowerMILL but that was easier to use and incorporated familiar terminology for the dental technician. To meet this need, Delcam developed DentMILL, a highly-automated knowledge-based program specifically designed to generate toolpaths to machine restorations.

Following early success with DentMILL, Delcam began the introduction of the partner design program, DentCAD. Again, the new software was based on an existing program, in this case Delcam’s PowerSHAPE system for the design of complex products and tooling. In a similar way, the aim with DentCAD was to provide software that would be easy for dental technicians to use, regardless of their previous knowledge of computer-aided design.

Continued development of the two programs means that they can offer levels of speed and accuracy that are impossible with traditional, manual methods. High-quality restorations are now produced within hours that would have taken days previously, thereby giving a much faster service to patients.

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