Novolab, a nine-person Austrian dental lab, became 60% more efficient and found a way to grow its dental lab without hiring by switching to one-piece prosthetic printing with TrueDent® on the Stratasys J5 DentaJet®.
See how this lab, built entirely on digital workflows, found the missing piece for prosthetics and turned a small team into a scalable advantage. Their story shows what a dental technician shortage solution looks like in practice.
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9 People Team, digital from day one |
2 J5s Stratasys J5 DentaJet Printers |
Up to 60% More efficient in prosthetics |
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2022 Founded as a fully digital lab |
Prosthetics, guides, models, provisionals, try-ins |
0 New Hires To scale prosthetics output |
Novolab GmbH was founded in Eggelsberg, Austria in 2022 by Robert Absmanner and Thomas Absmanner. Unlike labs that transition into digital production over time, Novolab never operated any other way. “From the very beginning, we worked exclusively with digital workflows,” says Absmanner.
That approach led the young lab to 3D printing early on. Novolab brought in its first Stratasys J5 DentaJet® to produce models, splints, and guided surgery applications. The lab now runs two J5 printers and organizes its services around a single principle: digital dental services, spanning fabrication, training, and scanner support for the practices it partners with.
Novolab’s constraint was never a shortage of customers. It was a lack of available dental technicians across Austria and much of Central Europe, a labor gap that made it hard for the small lab to keep up with the demand it already had.
“In Austria, as in most Central European countries, there is a shortage of dental technicians,” Absmanner explains. “Before we started using Stratasys and digital denture printing, it was a real challenge to manage this labor shortage and meet customer demand.”
With nine people on staff, Novolab could not close that gap by hiring. “We are a small team of just nine people and don’t have the manpower to scale significantly through hiring,” Absmanner notes. For Novolab, growing without hiring meant switching to a fully digital, one-piece printing workflow for prosthetics.
Novolab had built its business around digital. “We wanted to operate almost entirely digitally and had no desire to return to analog workflows,” Absmanner reflects. Prosthetics was the one product line that hadn’t caught up. Complete and partial dentures still needed a path into the digital workflow that didn’t compromise on speed or appearance.
When Novolab's team was introduced to TrueDent® material for one-piece prosthetic printing, they had their answer. “This was very interesting to us because we wanted to integrate this technology into our fully digital workflow,” Absmanner recalls.
Certification was central to the decision. “Stratasys, with TrueDent, was the only manufacturer that could offer this efficiently using a certified material,” Absmanner adds.
Novolab’s complete workflow now stays entirely in the digital realm. A scan arrives from the clinic, the case is designed in software, and the denture is printed in one piece rather than built manually from separate components.
“We receive the data digitally, design, print, manufacture, and deliver much faster than before,” Absmanner says. “Because we’ve operated digitally from the start, a printer like the J5 fits perfectly into our workflow.”
One-piece prosthetic printing also cuts out a layer of manual assembly that traditional denture production requires. “The one-piece printing workflow removes many manual manufacturing steps,” Absmanner points out, a change that carries through directly to the lab’s output.
The time saved opened room for services Novolab could not previously offer at any real scale. The lab now turns around fast try-ins, interim restorations, and duplicate or travel dentures, none of which were practical given the lab’s size and the pace of manual production.
“We can offer duplicate and travel dentures with a level of efficiency and cost-effectiveness that was previously impossible,” Absmanner notes. “We can provide interim restorations easily, quickly, and cost-effectively, now with exceptional aesthetics thanks to TrueVoxelTM technology.”
On the J5 printers, Novolab now covers prosthetics, implant guides, models, and provisionals alongside try-ins, a wider menu of applications than the lab could support before TrueDent.
The clearest result of Novolab's digital prosthetics workflow is the direct gain in small dental lab efficiency.
“With the same workforce, we can complete significantly more cases and are up to 60% more efficient,” Absmanner says. “Our small team can now handle the volume our customers require.”
Today, Novolab produces many more prosthetic components and uses the freed-up capacity to take on additional volume and new product types. It's a practical example of how to grow a dental lab without hiring a single additional technician.
Before committing to the workflow, Novolab’s own technicians tested and validated TrueDent’s quality and precision themselves, rather than taking manufacturer claims at face value.
“From Zahntechniker for Zahntechniker,” Absmanner says, describing the lab’s peer-to-peer approach to validation. “We have thoroughly tested and validated the quality and precision ourselves.”
Clinics and patients have responded well to the finished restorations. “Our customers are now completely convinced,” Absmanner reflects, “and the aesthetics provided by TrueDent’s TrueVoxel advanced aesthetics technology have exceeded expectations. We receive excellent feedback from both dentists and patients.”
Absmanner sums up the lab’s advantage this way: “The greatest advantage is consistent, reproducible quality achieved with exceptional efficiency.”
Novolab’s recommendation to peers is direct. “We fully recommend Stratasys-printed TrueDent dentures and encourage other laboratories to test the technology,” Absmanner concludes.
Novolab’s size was never the obstacle its founders worried it might be. With the right digital workflow behind it, Novolab shows how it’s possible to grow a dental lab without hiring, setting its own pace for growth.
