Dental products company to build factory in Lehi

A company focused on digitizing the dental industry will expand in Lehi, adding 200 jobs at a manufacturing site over the next eight years.

Claire Manufacturing I Inc., a new subsidiary of Zima International Inc., doing business as Dandy, will build a manufacturing operation at the former site of the Trafalga Fun Center. It made the announcement about the nearly $11 million project after being approved for a tax credit incentive by the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (Go Utah) board.{mprestriction ids="1,3"}

“In our Utah facilities, we plan on building a first-of-its-kind, high-tech manufacturing dental lab operation where we’ll be making dental prosthetics, so this is crowns, bridges, implants, nightguards,” Carter Chang, Dandy’s vice president of strategy and operations, told the Go Utah board.

Much of the industry uses a process that involves the patient biting on putty in order to get impressions used to create patient-specific crowns, bridges, braces and prosthesis. Dandy uses scans to create 3D-printed models and materials.

In a prepared statement, Chang said Utah “is the new national epicenter for dental innovation and industry.”

“We have experienced a tremendous amount of growth,” Chang told the board. “We plan on being the largest dental lab by the end of next year, and we plan on manufacturing the majority of our products in our vertically integrated site in Utah.”

Chang said the company has about 600 employees nationwide, among a total of 700 to 800 worldwide. The Utah operation effectively is its secondary headquarters, with large groups of employees in New York and San Francisco.

“This facility is going to be probably our highest concentration of employees,” he said. “Dandy is fully remote, so it’s a spread-out workforce, but Utah will probably be the highest concentration of employees.”
Steve Neeleman, chairman of the Go Utah incentives committee, noted that the project is “advanced manufacturing, which is, we think, a great business for Utah.”

The project is expected to generate nearly $86.3 million in new wages over eight years, with the new jobs expected to average $76,300 per year. The project is expected to generate new state tax revenue of nearly $5.4 million over eight years. The company was approved for a tax credit of up to 15 percent of that amount, or up to $795,008.

“Dandy has a unique business model that will be a great addition to our state,” Ryan Starks, Go Utah’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “With this expansion, the area gains high-paying jobs above the average county wage.”

“This is an exciting win for Lehi that will bring high-tech production jobs to the center of Utah’s tech sector,” said Scott Cuthbertson, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah. “Dandy has found a great home in Silicon Slopes and will add to the economic diversity of the region.”

Go Utah does not provide upfront cash incentives. Each year that an incentivized company meets the obligations in its contract with the state, it will qualify to receive a portion of the new, additional state taxes the company paid to the state.{/mprestriction}