A discrete event simulation method for performance analysis of an additive manufacturing in the dental clinic

Abstract

Three-dimensional printing (3DP) is an evolutionary solution for making customize items for all sectors, but it has become more prominent in the healthcare sector. In this field, some solutions have to be adapted to patients. This is especially true for dentistry, where all the patients have their own unique mouth and tooth structure. It is now possible to provide an accurate model of the patient's mouth and teeth with solutions that are perfectly compatible with them, leading to the provision of a dental service with a high success rate. Even if there is a problem, it is enough to change the three-dimensional design. Therefore, it is a time-saving method, too. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of 3DP in dentistry and to identify the processes and procedures resulting from the use of this technology. To do so, with the help of a case study, a 3DP-based dental clinic that provides implant, orthodontics, restoration and dentures services is simulated in Arena software. The current state of the system is assessed by defining appropriate evaluation criteria including net profit, utilization, waiting time, patients makespan and laboratory makespan. The simulation model is then developed with innovations such as adding an inventory control policy, creating rest time for resources and controlling the policy of sending products from laboratory to the clinic. After an extensive sensitivity analysis, improving the performance of the system is on the agenda of this paper by examining various scenarios. Results show that scenarios such as reducing some resources of the system or considering rest time in exchange for increasing the duration of the work shift can have a significant impact on clinic performance.

Creating an Innovative Business Model for the Performance of Commercial Dental Clinics

“…Thus, this value amounts to 109,409.82 RUB (see column 2 of Table 4) = 21,881.96 RUB (total payment to the lender per month, see Figure 6) • 5 (number of dental therapists). To calculate the amount of the monthly payment indicated in column 3 (Table 4), the following equation is used [51,52]: (14) where R is the amount of the monthly loan payment; Ploan amount; rinterest rate on the loan per month (%); ntotal number of loan payments for the entire loan term (number of months).…”

“…For effective CDO activities, it is necessary to create mechanisms for managing the digital production process [14][15][16] and denture production at all stages, from design in CAD/CAE systems to the dentist's work when seeing a patient. It is required to create protocols and economic incentives to reduce violations associated with human factors, namely, the number of breakdowns of removable and fixed dentures, the number of citizens' appeals due to poor-quality treatment and prosthetics, the share of negative customer reviews on the Internet and social networks (messengers), and other types and factors that can harm the reputation and, ultimately, the CDO market value [17][18][19].…”

“…Existing business processes for the development and modernization of commercial dental clinics can be characterized as ineffective since there is no holistic scientific and methodological approach to making informed managerial decisions based on economic and mathematical methods and models integrated into everyday practice. Problems of low efficiency in business processes are associated with fragmentation and imperfection of the economic and mathematical apparatus and instruments used in practice and methods for labor incentives [13,14,26]. Attempts to create a full-fledged, comprehensive, innovative system for the development and improvement of business processes in commercial dental clinics, including a progressive system of incentives for workers, deductions to the enterprise development fund, and effective mechanisms for managing financial resources based on the developed methodology of economic and mathematical modeling of processes for managing the development of medical organizations, are presented in [27][28][29].…”

A hybrid framework for fleet management with quality concerns: a case for the food industry

“…Rockwell ARENA is simulation and automation software from Rockwell Automation Inc. (Neeraj et al, 2018). The recent use of Arena in the literature for discrete event simulation includes additive manufacturing (Kamali et al, 2022) and patient flow in clinical practices (Maass et al, 2022).…”

Digital Interactive Design and Robot-Assisted Preparation Experiment of Tooth Veneer Preparation: An in Vitro Proof-of-Concept

“…Accurate morphological design is the primary task of automated preparation [10]. In recent years, digital technologies such as optical scanning, CAD/CAM and 3D printing [11,12] have been gradually applied in the field of restorative dentistry. With the development of digital dentistry, various assisted prosthodontic systems have emerged in turn.…”