DentalCube was founded by a master dental technician who has worked in dental technology for more than 30 years and has run labs himself. Meet Christian Penz and find out how DentalCube came about, what we stand for and which principles apply to every lab on the platform.
Master dental technician, founder of DentalCube
“If you can choose freely, you can decide freely.”
Since his journeyman’s exam in 1995, Christian Penz has seen dental technology from every angle: first as a technician, then as lab manager in Kiel and, from 2007, with his own lab, Zahnwerk in Husum, Germany. In 2013 he passed his master’s exam. Most recently, until 2025, he was a partner in and manager of a lab in Flensburg.
Over all these years he has experienced the typical bottlenecks first-hand: order peaks, machine breakdowns, missing staff or materials. Yet there is almost always a lab nearby with exactly the capacity that is missing. Instead, more and more milling and laser melting work is moving to large industrial milling centres. Labs become dependent, and the value leaves the craft.
Christian wants to change that with DentalCube. Dental technicians should strengthen each other: labs choose their partners freely among colleagues, hand work over when things get tight and take on orders when their machines are free. That keeps the value where it belongs: in the master labs.
DentalCube was not dreamed up at a desk but in the lab, out of problems every lab owner knows.
Anyone who runs a lab knows the situation: orders pile up, the milling machine breaks down, a specialist is off sick or a material is missing. The dentist’s appointments do not move. Then only a colleague who steps in can help. Finding the right one has so far mostly depended on personal contacts and the phone.
An order exchange from dental technicians for dental technicians. A lab posts its order with the data set, material, delivery date and target price. Colleagues submit offers with price and delivery time, delivery costs included. The client chooses who makes it: faster or cheaper, regional or further afield.
Christian reviews the technical content himself. Many features go back to his tips from practice, such as the bridge rules in the order form or shipment tracking. Terms, workflows and rules should feel like your own lab.
DentalCube is currently being tested with selected labs in Germany. Every piece of feedback from the labs goes straight into the platform. Next, verified labs will place and take on the first real orders.
Behind DentalCube are two people who have known each other for more than 30 years: a master dental technician who knows the industry from the inside and a developer who builds the platform. Together they share a big goal: the platform where dental labs work together.
Founder, master dental technician
The head behind DentalCube. He brings more than 30 years of experience in dental technology, as a lab manager and as a lab owner, decides how the exchange works from a technical point of view and reviews all technical content.
Development
Builds and maintains the platform and puts the feedback from the labs into practice, so that DentalCube works in everyday lab life.
Behind DentalCube is a clear conviction: dental technology is strong when labs stick together.
Founded by a master technician, built for everyday lab work. On DentalCube labs work for labs, without middlemen.
Orders stay among labs, on request only among independent labs. Free machine time becomes revenue for colleagues in the region.
No lab is tied to a partner. Every lab sets its own prices and decides anew with every order who it works with.
Labs help each other when things get tight: during order peaks, machine breakdowns or staff shortages. Whoever hands work over today takes it on tomorrow.
Free choice only works if you can rely on each other. That is why the same rules apply to everyone on DentalCube.
The client states a target price, every bid shows production and delivery as one total. No surcharges afterwards.
Every lab sets its own prices. DentalCube sets no prices and no minimum; a lab that wants a minimum order value sets it in its profile.
Every business is checked before activation, including the VAT ID via the EU VIES system. Access is granted only once the user agreement has been accepted.
Every lab shows whether it is independent, part of a group or a milling centre. Clients can choose whether a job is visible to independent labs only.
After every job both labs rate each other. After three confirmed complaints within 12 months a lab can be suspended.
Data sets are kept in private storage. Only the lab that wins the job can download them, and they are deleted 30 days after completion.
No machines of our own, no production of our own, not a lab and therefore not a competitor. Responsibility for the job, quality and MDR compliance lies with the labs involved (details in the user agreement § 4 no. 3).
Registration is free. We check every registration and activate your lab.