The Smile System

Biotec Srl was established in 1998 as a subcontractor for the production of medical devices. Based in Povolaro di Dueville, near Vicenza, Italy, the company decided to invest in the development of an advanced dental implant program under its own brand.

“From a strategic standpoint, we realized that subcontracting was not a long-term vision, so we gathered the entire production under the Biotec brand and, in 2009, we undertook a new project to re-launch our business, involving all areas from technology to marketing,” says Dr. Andrea Peloso, managing director of Biotec. “That’s how the ‘btk’ brand was born, propelling Biotec into the business of cosmetic surgery and dental implants. With its three letters, the new brand maintains an association with the company’s name and, at the same time, sums up its core values: biocompatibility, technology and know-how.”

Fittingly, the company’s tagline is “the smile system™.”

Biotec employs about 40 people, and has doubled its headcount in the last three years. Sixty percent of the business comes from Italy and the rest is generated from Southern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe. New markets are opening at regular intervals from Libya to Russia, often requiring long certification procedures before products can be marketed. In some cases, the waiting period can be up to two years.

“Powerful, intuitive and fast”

A dental implant is not a simple product: It has small dimensions, needs to perform multiple functions and is used by demanding doctors.

“In recent years, doctors have shown increasing interest in design,” says Peloso. “They know about technology and ask to be involved. It’s great to have their help developing high-tech and innovative products provided that we have tools that enable us to design concurrently with physicians, showing them the conceptual prototype of an implant as well as the final product.”

To meet these new requirements, Biotec management decided to adopt product lifecycle management (PLM) technology in 2010, and chose Solid Edge® software from Siemens Digital Industries Software. Solid Edge provides advanced computer-aided design (CAD) technology for accelerated product development, faster revisions and better data re-use.

“We selected Solid Edge because it is powerful, intuitive and fast,” says Igor Piccoli, research and development (R&D) manager at Biotec. “Many design tools require long preparation and setup, whereas we often design entire product families, so we need a very dynamic and flexible approach. We must have all the features of parametric CAD in intuitive and easy-to-use software. Solid Edge fits that description.”