Dental Laboratory Management System for Nunez Dental Clinic
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date
Jun 24, 2026
slug
nunez-dental-lab-management-system
status
Published
tags
Website
summary
A real-time lab job tracking and inventory system for a dental clinic — managing case pipelines, technician handoffs, and supply stock levels.
type
Post
The Problem
Dental laboratories handle dozens of active cases simultaneously — crowns, bridges, dentures, and retainers. Each item moves through multiple manufacturing stages, assigned to different technicians, and delivered back to specific dentists. Managing this with paper logs or sticky notes quickly leads to lost jobs and missed delivery dates.
Nunez Dental Clinic needed a central hub to manage lab cases end-to-end.
System Capabilities
The Dental Laboratory Management System provides full operational visibility across the lab floor:
- Case Tracking: Log incoming jobs with patient details, case types, attending dentist, shade specifications, and target due dates.
- Status Pipeline: Visual Kanban stages (Received -> In Progress -> Quality Check -> Ready -> Delivered).
- Material & Inventory Tracking: Log materials consumed per case to track stock levels and cost of goods sold.
- Delivery & Pickup Logs: Record timestamps and courier signatures upon pickup or delivery.
- Doctor / Client Portal: View pending cases per doctor and track status without calling the lab.
Technical Architecture
Built with Next.js, TypeScript, and Supabase.
- Real-Time Synchronization: Supabase real-time subscriptions keep the lab floor and front desk synchronized. When a technician updates a case stage on a tablet, the receptionist sees it immediately.
- Optimistic UI Updates: UI state updates instantly while requests settle in the background, keeping the floor workflow fast for lab technicians handling tools.
Key Design Decisions
Stage Transition Rules
To ensure cases do not skip quality assurance steps, state transitions enforce prerequisite checks (e.g., a case cannot move to Ready until all material consumption logs and QA sign-offs are submitted).
Inventory Deductions
Material usage is linked directly to case completion, automatically decrementing physical stock (porcelain blocks, acrylics, metal alloys) and triggering reorder alerts when thresholds are reached.
Outcome & Impact
The lab team replaced physical paper slips with a single live dashboard. Turnaround tracking helps them spot bottlenecks on the floor before deadlines slip, improving on-time delivery to partnering dentists.
*(Note: This is a private client project built for internal clinic and lab operations.)*