AOS?
In a world of staggering technology advancement, it has proven difficult to find technicians in the field of manufacturing. The scarcity of technicians is pronounced for companies of handmade products, which require advanced skills and precision. AOS provides a solution to advance an almost forgotten trade.
Advanced Orthodontic Solutions, aka AOS, manufactures automated wire forming machines and develops CAD/CAM software for the Orthodontic Market. AOS was incorporated in 2017 and is currently based in Tampa, Florida in a 53,000 square feet building
Some History:
AOS is a sister company to AIM, Inc. which was founded in 1992 (www.AimMachines.com).
Since 1992, AIM, Inc. has been developing and manufacturing CNC wire forming solutions for manufacturers of industrial wire components, in the Automotive, Locomotive, Appliance, Agricultural, Point of Purchase, Construction and Lighting markets to name a few.
Having 25 years of experience in increased precision machine manufacturing, Aim, Inc. decided to expand into other markets. With the Industrial and Medical / Dental markets both requiring wire bending solutions, AOS was created.
AOS, formed it’s Engineering, Sales, Software, Production, Assembly and Support departments, to work alongside with AIM, Inc. A new facility was acquired for AOS, in Tampa, Florida, to accommodate its growing needs. Aim Inc., our original facility located in Addison, Illinois, remains as a “satellite location.”
2015
The first micro Bender was unveiled at the Interwire trade show in Atlanta in 2015. It was a worldwide first small tabletop machine, capable of producing orthodontic wire retainers.
A small tabletop machine, powered from a 120V plug with the technology and “brains” of a large industrial machine was revealed. The project received immediate attention from many micro bending markets, with Medical and Dental markets being the strongest. A huge challenge was introduced: There was no software available to produce the 3D solid model of the wire to be produced! That was the time to start developing automatic software to produce the wire models needed to be used as input to the micro Bender.
2017
Although a great accomplishment for being the first wire bending machine in the orthodontic world, it was desired to be more user friendly. Through beta testing and close collaboration with dental labs, AOS software engineers developed new CAD/CAM tools. With the creation of these new tools, we minimized the time burden of the digital design for the manufacturing of the orthodontic retainers, which is customized for every single production.
An updated micro Bender was presented at the IDS 2017 trade show in Cologne, Germany and AAO’s 117th Annual Session in San Diego, CA, USA, along with the first release of the JawDraw® software. JawDraw® was introduced as a user-friendly platform where the user can “draw” a wire path around a solid model of a Jaw and translate the data to machine language. Allowing the Micro Bender to produce a wire part automatically with accuracy.
2019
After years of testing and collaborating with Orthodontic labs and technicians, our engineers realized that we had to further automate the design process while lowering the knowledge requirements of the users. A new version of JawDraw® was released, allowing the user to select appliance types from a template library and develop the wire form automatically with the assistance of a live wizard.
A sixth revision of the micro bender was released with updated tooling, automatic material and tool calibration, and material presented on a spool. This allowed for minimizing setup times and eliminating wire scrap.
The latest model will be debuted at the 2019 AAO (American Association of Orthodontist) annual session in Los Angeles, CA, USA.
The MB v6, a tabletop servo-operated machine along with JawDraw® software, will “enhance” the Orthodontic Appliance Industry, easing the manual and labor-intensive orthodontic appliance operations. Although the Micro Bender cannot replace a good technician 100%, it can produce the retainers in 1/10th of the time (or faster) with immaculate accuracy, much better than what the human hand can accomplish.
AOS’s development exponentially increases accuracy while slashing production times to a fraction of the cost. Besides the technology included, our accountants estimate 6-12 months R.O.I.
2022
As we enter 2022, our newly redesigned MB1-V7 is flying out of the door. Our team and operations in Tampa continues to expand in order to support our rapidly growing demand.
Evidently, the pandemic has had a dramatic impact on our industry. Laboratories continue to face the same issue of being unable to find skilled technicians that are willing and able to successfully manually bend wire by hand all day, every day. Wire bending is difficult and requires a lot of training, patience and investment to become proficient.
The MicroBender’s simplicity and the ease of use/ intuitiveness of JawDraw, means that anyone with basic computer knowledge is able to create high quality appliance wires with just a few hours of training. The continuous development of JawDraw, machine tooling, the sourcing of best materials and great customer support allows us to offer the orthodontic world a better, more accurate and more cost-effective solution to satisfy your labs wire bending needs and help grow production.
Mission Statement
Spread smiles: At AOS, we Develop User-friendly and Precision Technology for the Orthodontic World.
