Scaling Smarter and Engineering the Future of Dental Care: Corus Byrnes’ Digital Leap with Carbon 3D Printing
In the world of restorative dentistry, time is more than money – it affects patient comfort, trust, and care quality. As demand for digital care rises and their workforce ages, labs face a growing challenge: how to scale quicker and expedite production without sacrificing quality. For Corus Byrnes Dental Lab, a second-generation lab in the UK with a heritage of precision, craftsmanship, and customer-centric care, the solution was clear: teaming up with Carbon to enhance their digital technology to drive smarter, faster production.
By leveraging Carbon’s advanced 3D printing platform, the lab has streamlined production, eliminated repetitive manual tasks, and empowered its skilled technicians to focus on what matters most – delivering consistently high-quality restorations in a changing clinical landscape.
Rooted in Quality, Driven by Technology
What began in 2006 as a family-run lab known for clinical precision has evolved into a key player in the UK’s digital dental space. Under the leadership of Ashley Byrne – Laboratory Owner and Associate Director at what is now Corus Byrnes – the lab has expanded rapidly, scaling effectively at pace.
The growth accelerated in 2022 when Byrnes joined the Corus Group, a leading network of more than 90 digital dental laboratories across 10 European countries. The move marked Corus’ venture into the UK and positioned Byrnes at the center of a broader strategy to digitize dental manufacturing across Europe. Today, Corus Byrnes continues to serve its own clinician base while supporting six other labs in the UK collective with 3D print production. With shared values around innovation, quality, and clinical performance, the Corus partnership has helped Corus Byrnes deepen its tech-driven approach, achieving faster, more consistent results while preserving the craft and care it’s known for.
“We’re not afraid to try new things,” Ashley explains. “If we see a technology that can genuinely help our clients and their patients, we want to be part of that. But it has to integrate into our real-world workflow and deliver results.”
The practical implementation of technologies had previously proven a critical barrier for Corus Byrnes. While the lab had long embraced the shift towards digital technologies, some key areas remained a challenge – especially when it came to products such as night guards and dentures. Prior to Corus Byrnes discovering Carbon, reliability of their existing 3D print solutions had been a major concern. Failed prints, poor contacts, and escalating costs from wasted resins, broken dentures, and frequent repairs were placing growing pressure on the team. It wasn’t only frustrating – it was costly, stressful, and directly impacting both staff and client satisfaction.
“It wasn’t just about how long it took to make something,” Ashley explains. “It was the unpredictability that affected trust. If a clinician expects something on a certain day that doesn’t arrive, it erodes confidence. Multiply that by hundreds of clients, and it’s a big issue.”
Predictability Matters
When Corus Byrnes discovered Carbon, they expected more than a faster printer – they were looking for a production partner that could offer a scalable approach with robust clinical performance. The Carbon platform, known for its high-speed, high-quality Carbon Digital Light Synthesis™ (Carbon DLS™) 3D printing and rigorously validated materials, offered just that. “The thing that stood out to us wasn’t just the quality of the prints,” Ashley says. “It was the complete system – the printer, resins, software, and support. It all had to work together. That’s what gave us confidence.”
The standout difference with Carbon’s technology became clear almost immediately. Just 48 hours after installing their first M2 3D printer, the team at Corus Byrnes had already decided they wanted a second, to switch over more production to their Carbon platform. “That’s how quickly things evolved. Suddenly, we could quadruple our volume whilst actually reducing pressure on the team. We quickly realized the new Carbon printer was just so good that we wanted to print everything with it,” says Ashley.
Proof in Every Print
Since adopting Carbon, Corus Byrnes has transformed the production of various items from night guards and surgical guides to custom trays and dentures, moving products from an analog to a fully digital workflow and shifting others from older 3D printing systems onto the Carbon platform. The result is dramatically faster turnaround times and a noticeable uplift in consistency, quality, and client satisfaction. What’s more, print failure rates reduced from 10% to 0.01%.
“We’re seeing much faster turnaround times,” says Ashley. “But more importantly, we’re getting consistent results every time. There’s less waste, fewer remakes, and our clients are happier. With denture production, for example, the quality is better than anything we’ve seen elsewhere – but more than that, the workflow is making a real impact. Many of the patients we serve have dementia, and if they lose their dentures, without a digital workflow, it’d take 10–12 weeks to replace them. Now, we can do it in just 24 hours. That’s a true quality-of-life difference.”
With Carbon’s validated resins like DPR 10, KeySplint Soft® and Lucitone Digital IPN™ from Dentsply Sirona, Corus Byrnes has also seen improvements in fit, strength, and patient comfort – all while maintaining the aesthetic and clinical standards the lab is known for. “Dentures also used to be something we just accepted as a bit clunky to make and reliability was poor,” Ashley adds. “Now they’re one of the most streamlined and reliable parts of our workflow.”
Faster Iteration, Smarter Results
For Ashley, one of the unexpected benefits of Carbon was its ability to support innovation at scale. Thanks to the repeatability of the process and the robust digital tools, the lab has been able to test, tweak, and improve new designs quickly, without compromising quality or impacting timelines.
“The ability to iterate digitally with our Carbon machines and Design Engine software is huge,” Ashley explains. “We can prototype a new tray or denture, test it the next day, and roll it out across our orders almost instantly. That’s something we couldn’t do before.”
Power in Partnership
Corus Byrnes’ success with Carbon is based on the support structure, shared mindset, and approach to partnership. “It’s very easy for companies to sell you a printer and disappear,” Ashley explains. “Carbon’s approach is different. They’re genuinely invested in our success. From the onboarding to the technical support, to how they help us think about new materials – it’s a long-term relationship.”
This relationship has extended to collaboration on performance data, workflow optimization, and even future product ideas. For a lab that’s always looking ahead, Ashley credits this dialogue partly to Carbon’s subscription model – a departure from traditional industry norms, but one that’s proven to be a key enabler of ongoing improvement and collaboration.
“We were initially somewhat hesitant about the subscription model; it’s not how this industry typically operates. But it’s actually been a huge advantage. The printer is constantly updated, the software keeps improving, and I have complete visibility over our monthly costs, aside from materials. In today’s market, with so much unpredictability, that level of stability is invaluable.”
Looking Ahead: Confidence in the Process
With the Carbon platform now embedded into their core production, Corus Byrnes is continuing to scale and diversify. The new capabilities with Carbon provide the trust and assurance that the lab can continue to meet the growing market demand even while the global workforce of dental technicians diminishes.
“In the end, it comes down to confidence,” Ashley says. “Confidence that what we’re producing is accurate, best-in-class in quality, that it reaches the clinician on time, and ultimately, that it benefits the patient. Carbon helps us deliver on all of that.”
He adds that the goal now is to continue driving smart automation without losing the craft that defines dental work. “Practically speaking, we’re focused on eliminating as many manual, repetitive tasks as possible so we can focus on the artistry, treatment planning and customer/patient success. We use AI to design and nest models via Carbon’s Automatic Print Preparation software, and we’ve recently integrated the Carbon AO Backpack to automate part removal, resin capture and refill, and part collection. What once required three or four technicians can now be managed by one.
“That efficiency allows us to reallocate talent where it matters most, preserving the artisanal side of dentistry: the work that truly benefits from human skill and expertise.”
For Corus Byrnes, innovation isn’t just about adopting new tools, it’s about rethinking the process from the ground up. With Carbon, they’re not just keeping up with change – they’re helping lead it.
