Dental Laboratory Groups: Sharing Tools Without Breaking Anything

In a few years, 1,000 dental laboratories have disappeared in France. Some 3,600 remain today, according to l'Information Dentaire. This grouping of dental laboratories raises a concrete question: how do you share tools across sites without breaking anything in each one acquired?

A consolidation that touches the whole sector

The number of structures is falling, but activity is not collapsing with it. L'Information Dentaire notes a headcount that has stayed broadly stable over the period, and sector revenue that barely retreats.

That contrast tells the sector's story: fewer independent structures, but activity holding up, carried by larger groups. That is the very definition of consolidation. Case volume does not disappear: it moves to structures that absorb several sites at once.

For a laboratory owner, the movement is no longer a distant hypothesis. Buying out a peer, joining a network, merging with other sites: the question of shared tooling comes up sooner or later.

The phenomenon is not confined to the large cities. Mid-sized laboratories in the regions are coming together too, to hold up against costs rising faster than their case volume.

Why laboratories group together

The reasons given come back to the same handful. Passing on a family laboratory becomes harder without an individual buyer ready to take on the production tools alone.

The investments expected also weigh more heavily on a small isolated structure: production equipment, CAD software licenses, continuing training for the teams. A group spreads those fixed costs across several sites rather than one.

Large clients, clinic groups or practice networks, look for partners able to sustain a steady volume and consistent digital reliability. An isolated site sometimes struggles to meet that specification alone.

Grouping answers that commercial and economic pressure. But it immediately moves the problem to the IT side: each site has built its own habits, its own software contracts, its own processes. None of that lines up automatically on the day of the merger.

The number of scanner brands dentists use is rising too, whatever the case volume handled. So a laboratory absorbing several sites inherits several dentist bases, often spread across different brands. That multiplicity amplifies the logistical complexity, well before any talk of sharing management software.

The trap of replacing everything in one move

The first temptation, after an acquisition, is to impose one tool on every site. One management system, one CAD program, one reception cloud. On paper, the logic looks unanswerable: simpler to run, simpler to invoice.

In practice, that abrupt switch runs into three concrete obstacles.

Teams have their habits. A technician trained on one program for years loses speed while relearning another. That drop in productivity hits production at the worst moment: during integration.

Scanners are not chosen by the laboratory. The dentists decide which brand of scanner they use: 3Shape, Medit, iTero, Dentsply DS Core or another. A site therefore receives the cases sent by its dentists' scanners, not by a fleet the laboratory would control itself.

Each software ecosystem has its own rules. Medit Link remains a proprietary platform limited to the brand's own scanners: STL export to Exocad is direct, while export to 3Shape Dental System stays manual and depends on the recipient's license. DS Core, Dentsply Sirona's cloud platform, answers to a comparable logic. Migrating a whole site from one environment to another is not decreed in a single board meeting.

The result of a forced, poorly prepared replacement often looks like a drop in production over several weeks. The time it takes for teams to find their bearings in an environment they have not yet mastered.

A scenario that comes back often after an acquisition

Two structures merge. A month later, head office imposes a change of management system on everyone at once. The acquired site's teams lose their bearings in the middle of an integration that is already tense.

Over the following weeks, turnaround times slip. The original site absorbs, on top of its own volume, part of the backlog left by the site in transition. The dentists change nothing in their practice: they go on sending their cases from the scanners of their choice. The blockage sits entirely on the laboratory's IT side, not on the clinical side.

A grouping that starts with shared reception avoids that shock. Each site keeps its CAD software for as long as it needs. Only the entrance changes: cases arrive in the same place, whatever scanner the dentist used. The rest of the software switch, where it makes sense, is prepared site by site, at its own pace.

What is shared quickly, and what can wait

A successful grouping does not share everything at the same pace. Some building blocks gain from being common on day one. Others can stay specific to each site, while the teams settle into the new whole.

Security deserves a mention of its own. In France, hosting health data means going through an HDS-certified provider, as the Agence du Numérique en Santé sets out. A grouping that centralizes cases from several sites has to check that this hosting stays compliant, whatever site the case came from.

Solutions already exist for linking several environments without merging everything. Connectors make it possible to feed cases from several manufacturer clouds into one management system, without imposing a single cloud on every site. The principle matches that of shared reception at group scale.

On the management side, a laboratory software vendor confirms it. These tools mainly help automate case handling and production planning. They also simplify stock tracking, block by block, site by site. That sharing progresses far better once case reception has been stabilized across the group.

CAD often stays the most sensitive position: design on one side, manufacturing on the other. The sector's definition draws a clear line between the two. It is the tool technicians use case by case, day to day, with bearings built over years. Switching it, where that makes sense, is prepared site by site, not in one block for the whole group.

How DigiLab fits into a grouping without forcing one tool

DigiLab does not offer to replace the software already in place at each site. DigiLab announces a universal inbox that centralizes reception of the cases sent by your dentists' scanners, whatever the brand. Each case is then pushed to the software the site's team already uses.

In practice, each site goes on working in Exocad, in Logidents or in MIA Soft, as it did before the grouping. That list of compatible tools already extends to more recent solutions such as AI4Dental or Relu, and will keep widening as the sector evolves.

What changes is reception. DigiLab announces compatibility with 9 scanners on the market and a start-up in under 10 minutes per workstation. No heavy cabling and no extended training to plan, site by site.

The data stays centralized within a single framework. DigiLab announces HDS hosting in France with medical-grade AES-256 encryption, whatever site the case came from. Each case keeps its traceability from the moment it enters the group. That helps a laboratory handling dozens of cases a day across several addresses.

DigiLab also announces support in 11 languages. That is useful for a group bringing together teams of different origins. The solution runs 100% white label, for a group that wants to keep its own identity in front of the dentists.

For groups taking on new sites regularly, DigiLab offers a deeper level. An API connection links the scanners, the CAD software and the laboratory's ERP. Each new member connects without reinventing a circuit of its own.

For an owner running a grouping, the point is not to pick a software camp. It is to secure a common entry point, without forcing every site to give up its habits overnight.

FAQ

Do you have to impose the same CAD software on every site after grouping laboratories?

No, not immediately. Each site can stay on its CAD software such as Exocad, and on its management software such as Logidents or MIA Soft. The priority goes first to centralized case reception, not to replacing the design workstations.

What should a laboratory group share first?

Reception of the cases sent by the dentists' scanners, data security and tracking the status of each case. Those blocks are centralized without touching each site's production habits.

Will the grouping of dental laboratories continue in France?

The sector has already lost independent structures in recent years, in favor of larger groups, while overall activity held up. Nothing points to a return to isolated structures in the short term. Laboratory owners therefore have an interest in preparing their tooling in advance, rather than facing it at the moment of an acquisition.

How does DigiLab help a laboratory group share tools without replacing everything?

DigiLab centralizes reception of the cases sent by your dentists' scanners. It then pushes them to the software each site already uses: Exocad, Logidents, MIA Soft or another. Each team keeps its usual tools.

Conclusion

Grouping dental laboratories is not only a capital operation. The real question comes next: sharing tools across several sites without causing a fall in production while everyone relearns.

Sharing case reception, securing the data and keeping each team's CAD software: the method changes everything. It avoids the blockage on merger day. See the DigiLab features to understand how a universal inbox fits into a multi-site group. Try DigiLab free on 100 cases over 14 days, before looking at the pricing page and its per-case tapering rate.

The Digilab team