Roland DG Corporation will transfer its 3D business to a newly-established, wholly-owned subsidiary, DGSHAPE Corporation, which starts operation on 3 April 2017.
Since introducing the world’s first desktop-sized 3D milling machine in 1986, Roland DG has developed a variety of innovative digital technologies with the mission of helping people ‘turn their imagination into reality’.
In 2010, Roland DG leveraged its 3D milling technology to introduce the DWX series dental milling machines used for fabricating dental prostheses such as crowns, copings and bridges. The DWX series soon gained recognition among dental labs worldwide for their precision, user-friendliness, robust reliability and open system. Today, the DWX series has become a major growth engine for Roland DG’s 3D business, accounting for 60% of sales in that segment.
Roland DG determined that the best approach for increasing visibility for its growing 3D business would be to spin it off as an autonomous company. DGSHAPE will provide further value throughout the dental market by developing marketing channels with dedicated sales and marketing teams, bringing fresh technical innovation to digital fabrication tools, and developing solutions based on the open system concept.
In addition to the dental industry, DGSHAPE will explore business opportunities in the medical field with a medical instrument traceability and maintenance support system. DGSHAPE intends to look for further possibilities in the healthcare field in the future by integrating the skills and know-how cultivated through its efforts in the dental and medical fields. DGSHAPE will also continue to provide innovative 3D products and solutions for the prototyping, education, personalisation, fabrication and hobby fields, as well as evolve the existing business for 3D digital fabrication tools to be a strategic platform for generating new products and businesses. For now, sales, service, and support for DGSHAPE will continue to be handled by Roland DG.
Kohei Tanabe, executive officer and general manager of DGSHAPE Market Development Department for Roland DG, will become representative director, president and CEO of DGSHAPE in March. The mission of DGSHAPE Corporation is to harness the 3D digital fabrication technologies and expertise that Roland DG has developed over more than three decades as well as its proprietary digital cell production system and global customer service and support system in order to provide advanced digital manufacturing/fabrication solutions. ‘DGSHAPE intends to deliver a greater level of added value that advances a new age of digital fabrication by not only developing innovative hardware and software,’ Tanabe said, ‘but by providing more efficient production workflows, enhanced service and support including consulting, and an open innovation environment that can generate a thriving business through exploiting next-generation technologies such as Cloud, IoT, AI and robotics.’
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