Then things shifted from mills to maintenance with Rebekah Serrago and Chris Wilson from Garland Dental Services. What started decades ago as a garage-based repair business fixing handpieces has grown into one of the industry’s best-kept secrets for equipment sales, service, and support. Rebekah shares the story of growing up folding flyers for her father’s repair company before eventually becoming CEO and expanding Garland into a massive online sales and service operation supporting everything from ovens to mills. Chris joins in to talk preventative maintenance, service certifications, keeping ancient ovens alive, and why labs desperately need dealers that actually understand the equipment they sell. It’s equal parts family-business story, repair shop wisdom, and hilarious behind-the-scenes dental lab banter.

Finally, the future officially arrived when the podcast crew sat down with Antoine Coppens from Relu and orthodontic lab owner Christian Saurman of New England Orthodontic Laboratory. What started as four engineering students experimenting with AI in Belgium somehow turned into fully automated dental workflows capable of designing surgical guides, night guards, models, and restorations in minutes. The conversation explores how AI is reshaping lab workflows, reducing manual design time, integrating directly into LMS systems, and even learning individual lab preferences. Christian explains how his custom-built orthodontic lab management system helped eliminate workflow chaos and automate huge portions of production, while Antoine gives a fascinating look into where dental AI is headed next. Between AI-generated appliances, automated scan checks, and self-learning workflows, this episode feels less like science fiction and more like a preview of what labs will look like over the next five years.

Special Guests: Antoine Coppens, Chris Wilson, Christian Saurman, Rebekah Serrago, and Tony Aliatim.

• Cal-Lab Association Meeting in Chicago Feb 19-20 https://cal-lab.org/
• LMT Lab Day Chicago Feb 19-21 https://lmtmag.com/lmtlabday

Almost three years after his last appearance, Rob Nazzal returns to Voices From the Bench, this time joined by Mike Alessio of Bonadent Dental Laboratory. The conversation dives deep into lab leadership, culture, transparency, and how data—when used the right way—can empower teams instead of policing them.

Mike shares his 32-year journey with Bonadent, from starting as a pickup-and-delivery driver to leading the Danaren division, and explains how a family-owned lab has grown into a multi-location organization without losing its people-first culture. Rob and Mike unpack the realities of tracking productivity on the lab floor, the challenges of sharing metrics openly, and why transparency builds trust, alignment, and accountability when done with intention.

The discussion shifts to quality vs. productivity, the difficulty of truly measuring “quality,” and why labs must lead with craftsmanship before numbers. They also explore how digital workflows, QC processes, and proactive communication with doctors impact remakes, efficiency, and relationships.

On the sales side, Rob breaks down how icortica helps labs grow by focusing on existing customers, improving retention, and giving sales teams real-time insights into what conversations they should be having—right before they walk into an office. Mike and Elvis share firsthand experiences using icortica, highlighting how real-time data, centralized notes, and smart alerts change the way sales reps prepare, prioritize, and perform.

The episode wraps with a look at Bonadent’s unique culture (including their famous converted Walmart lab), long employee tenure, and why investing in people, transparency, and the right technology is the real key to sustainable growth in today’s dental lab landscape.

If you want to grow your business, you need clear insight into what’s happening inside your operation and across your customer journey. That’s where Icortica comes in.

At Canadian Dental Labs, Icortica has become a cornerstone of how we operate—giving us at-a-glance visibility into performance, helping us focus our efforts, spot opportunities early, and solve problems before they grow. It takes the guesswork out of decision-making and shows us what to do next.

Plus, the Icortica team is incredibly responsive and feels like a true partner in our success.

If you’re serious about growing your business and understanding your customers better, Icortica can get you there. Learn more at icortica.com/voices — Icortica, helping dental labs grow.

Special Guests: Mike Alessio and Rob Nazzal.

Robert and Kaylee bring the real-world perspective, explaining how combining analog fundamentals with digital design unlocked predictable, better-fitting dentures and titanium partial frameworks that actually snap into place. From monolithic milled partials to same-day digital relines and cloud-based CAM without subscriptions, this conversation explores how “trad-digital” workflows could finally make digital dentures accessible, scalable, and practical for everyday labs—without sacrificing fit, function, or sanity.

Happy Holidays from Ivoclar!

As the year comes to a close, all of us at Ivoclar want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the incredible Voices From the Bench community. Thank you for your partnership, your trust, and the support you’ve shown throughout the year.

From our Ivoclar family to yours, we wish you a joyful, healthy, and safe holiday season.

May your days be merry, your nights be bright, and your smiles shine like freshly fallen snow.

Ho, ho, ho — Happy Holidays from Ivoclar!

Big news is coming your way in the world of CAM. Our friends at Ivoclar have teamed up with FOLLOW-ME! Technology to bring the Ivotion Denture System into the HyperDent CAM workflow.

That’s right—your favorite pre-shaded, two-layer Ivotion discs, the ones that let you design and mill a complete denture in one seamless process with no bonding and no mess, are now moving beyond closed systems. Thanks to this new partnership, Ivotion can finally be milled on open machines through HyperDent.

And it gets better: you’ll first see this powerful workflow available on the Roland DWX-53 series mills—already a staple in so many labs—as well as the Imagine iMills.

If you’ve been waiting for a faster, cleaner, more flexible way to produce full dentures, this is it. Ivoclar and FOLLOW-ME! just made the future of denture manufacturing wide open.

Get ready—HyperDent is about to change the way you mill Ivotion.

Special Guests: George Cowburn, Kaylee Jilbert , and Robert MacLeay .

TO DONATE: https://fdlt.memberclicks.net/donor-form#/

Select: Race for the Future
Enter the name of the racer you want to support: BARB WARNER or THE CROWN JEWELS
Enter the amount (One Million Dollars)

It's hard to believe that IDS 2025 happened over 4 months ago and we are still bringing out conversations we got while at the exocad booth. This one is jam-packed with three conversations with 4 different people in the dental industry that really are making huge impacts. First up is two dentist that are using their time and talent to teach other clinicians from around the world how to implement the digital workflow in their practice. Dr. Milad Shadrooh (The Singing Dentist!) and Dr. Robbie Hughes are from opposite ends of England but both share the passion of education. They talk about their careers, what kind of courses they offer at Avant Garde Dentistry and how through a mentorship program, dentist can go digital both efficiency and confidently.

Then we meet the CTO of Align Technologies, Zelko Relic. Zelko talks about getting into dental, the history of Align Technologies and when they merged in Invisalign, Itero, and exocad. He also talks about the resources they put towards R&D, scaling a company to make over 1 million parts A DAY, what new technologies are currently being worked on, and how they are making the ultimate in providing the comprehensive solution to all.

We wrap up the episode with Ben Weber from ModuleWorks. What is ModuleWorks, well it's kind of hard to explain. You see, it's in about 90% of the manufacturing in the world. It's not the CAM, it's not the user interface, but it's in the background making it all come together. Ben talks about what ModuleWorks is, how it works, and why we can't live without it.

Take it from Jennifer Ferguson from Ivoclar. If you have a PM7 or are thinking about getting a PM7 (Take it from Barb, you should), Ivoclar had launched the "Ivoclar Block Module" that can speed up milling emax by 45%!! The best part is that you can try it for FREE for 90 days. Al l you have to do is send them a message on Instagram at Ivoclar.na or send a email to jennifer.ferguson@ivoclar.com. Now go mill emax faster!

Special Guests: Ben Weber, Dr. Milad Shadrooh, Dr. Robbie Hughes, and Zelko Relic.