Always – A Disruptor to Dental Ordering

Stock ordering in dental clinics is complex, time-consuming, and often unreliable. For every patient, 10 to 20 different products are used. Each product has a variety of suppliers and sellers, all with their own account management and ordering methods. As a result, dental clinics are constantly managing their inventory, placing significant strain on staff and potentially affecting patients. The design challenge involved researching and developing a new way of bringing products to dental clinics that was more convenient and more confidence.

Our solution is a monthly subscription service called Always. Always bundles and sends the nine essential disposable dental items every clinic needs. These nine items cover 80% of every day patient product needs, thereby significantly reducing the amount of time a clinic needs to spend in managing their orders. The project engaged in mix-methods research, ideation and prototyping. Challenges: - Ensuring the right quantities for each clinic through a formula derived from prototyping and testing. - Overcoming complexities with having consistent order amounts w/ vary glove sizes - Choosing the type of products to ship (utility vs quality vs price)

The outcome of Always is a website offering clinics to subscribe and/or one of two products - each with the same set of the same nine essential items. Now clinics are able to easily cover the majority of their clinical product needs without needing to coordinate, reorder, wait and then review if the order has arrived in tact. This reliability in the ordering process means a reduced level of stress and concern for the clinical staff, as well as saving time and money.

- Customer experience design - Product design - Packaging design - Branding - E-commerce website