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As a renowned manufacturer in digital dentistry, Phibo has developed, produced and sold dental products for more than 30 years with a key focus on research and scientific innovation.

Over 8,000 customers, more than five million implants produced, and 2.5 million CAD/CAM-customised prostheses are a testament to the company’s success.

In addition to products such as implant systems and prostheses, Phibo also offers services and digital solutions and is currently a market leader in Spain, the Latin American market and various European countries.

The individual prostheses are produced by either using selective laser melting or milling. A key component of the process is the REGO-FIX poweRgrip.

When it comes to standardised production of implant systems, Phibo uses calibrated titanium rods as a raw material.

These rods are then machined to produce a variety of products such as implants, pins and clinical instruments.

Josep Pujol, COO of the Phibo Group says “Phibo currently has a portfolio of more than 2,000 references for standard products.”

Production Facility for CAD/CAM Solutions

While implant systems are standardised products, the prostheses produced using CAD/CAM are fully customised and Phibo’s patented implants undergo a critical treatment process.

The CAD/CAM processes have become indispensable and Phibo has been using them for more than ten years and produces thousands of prosthesis units daily in a 24 hour a day production setup.

The process begins with the impression, which can be taken digitally or via the traditional way of using materials such as silicone, which is then followed by digitisation.

In both cases, the prostheses are designed in the laboratory using CAD software.

Phibo produces these prostheses from a variety of materials such as cobalt chrome, titanium and zircon.

In the case of cobalt chrome, the material is mechanically machined in different machine tools equipped with the REGO-FIX poweRgrip.

The prostheses are machined at high speed on more than 20 five axes CNC machining centers with spindle speeds of up to 60,000rpm.

The HSK-32 connectors are used on all machines. Eduard León, Production Manager for CAD/CAM at Phibo says "When machining, we need to maintain precision of 10µm.”

The Phibo CAD/CAM technology can be used with this level of precision thanks to the REGO-FIX poweRgrip clamping system, which Phibo has been using since the product launch.

The reason for the purchase of a second C-N-C machine was that up until a point, Phibo only used ER collets.

Productivity and precision needed to increase to keep up with company growth.

The idea was also to reduce the number of toolholders, simplify clamping and create a durable system.

Tests were then carried out, with poweRgrip ultimately securing the victory.

The poweRgrip has helped reduce downtime significantly with precision and service life remaining consistent over a prolonged period.

Oscar Velilla, is the C-E-O of GerSwiss Ibérica Technology, which represents REJJO-FIX as a distributor in Spain. He says “If you work carefully and keep everything nice and clean, you’ll have a product that maintains precision for many years to come.”

“In the case of traditional clamping systems that are tightened by hand, the thread is exposed to a certain level of wear and deformation.

If you use the poweRgrip collet, there is just about no wear with clamping and releasing, which is why the same level of precision can be guaranteed even after thousands of clamping cycles.”

poweRgrip continues to help coordinate process parameters with a high degree of precision and thus achieves consistently high quality efficiently and with a low range of tolerance.

Eduard León says “The surface quality that we achieve by damping vibration is ideal for us.”

As a collet-based system, holder and collet, powRgrip offers this vibration damping as a significant benefit over thermally and directly clamped toolholder systems, resulting in optimal damping and this ensures a considerable reduction in vibration behavior during use.