Envista sees dazzling future ahead in China

Rising affluence, changing demographics and increasingly sophisticated consumers have fueled international dental health giant Envista's confidence in China, where experiences in technology and high-end manufacturing can feed into other markets, said the company's CEO Paul Keel.

He made the comments during an exclusive interview with China Daily on Tuesday, when the company's new facility in Suzhou in East China's Jiangsu province was officially put into operation. Utilizing a total of 1 billion yuan ($148.8 million), the new project has been the single largest investment that Envista has made in China since its debut here two decades ago.

"To be a global leader in dental, you have to be a leader in the biggest dental markets," he said.

The factory will produce Nobel Biocare implants and Ormco orthodontic brackets for the first time in China. These premium products were previously only manufactured in Europe and the United States.

"We did not invest here because of the lower cost of labor or construction materials. We came here because it is a more capable manufacturing environment," said Keel.

Compared with 20 years ago, multinational companies today come to China to take advantage of the technology, as "it is further ahead than in other parts of the world in many cases", especially in automation, software integration, vision systems and visual inspection, said Keel.

The same logic applies to Envista. Manufacturing the four series of products in the new Suzhou facility, including clear aligners, brackets and wires, dental implants and electronic intraoral scanners, the technologies used in the new project will lead all of the other plants.

With a headcount of about 600 employees, the Suzhou project will have a completely automated warehouse system integrating robots. Though Envista has seen such systems in other factories, the Suzhou facility will be the company's first scaled test, which will be replicated elsewhere, said Keel.

For the clear aligners, Envista used to develop the manufacturing technology in California, where the company is headquartered, and spread it across to its facilities in Mexico, the Czech Republic and China. The Suzhou facility, however, operates at such a high level that the whole process has been changed: the newest production steps will be developed here and sent back across the rest of the world, he added.