· In developing the Signo T500, successor to the Signo Treffert, the family-owned Japanese company Morita once again worked successfully with the Porsche design team. That this cooperation has more than paid off was amply documented this year as the title of “Best of the Best” of the prestigious Red Dot Award was assigned to this individually configurable premium treatment unit.
The coveted Red Dot Award has been internationally regarded as a seal of quality for outstanding product and communication design. Besides the general Red Dot Award, a few groundbreaking designs have the special title of “Red Dot: Best of the Best” assigned them — a title that dental specialist Morita is immensely pleased to have received this year. With its Signo T500 premium treatment unit, Morita is one of the winners in the “Red Dot Award: Product Design” discipline.
The jury of experts was particularly impressed by the Signo T500 as a harmoniously designed answer to the demands of everyday practice: “This elegant dental treatment chair unit is ergonomically sophisticated and comfortable, guaranteeing intuitive operation. In an impressive manner, it creates optimal treatment conditions for the patient, dentist, and other members of the dental team. Its modularity and flexibility have been tailored to perfectly match the requirements in dental practices.”’
But with all the gratification derived from receiving this highly valued award — it is not as if Morita had not already been fully confident about the premium quality of its treatment unit. Already the standard version of the Signo T500 comes with elegant, functional, and comfortable features, offering users a choice between a swivel-arm floor-mounted version (FMT), a floating-table over-the-patient version (OTP), and a cart version.
Dentists benefit from a user-friendly and reliable control panel and can freely choose their treatment position with the Signo T500. The instrument holder section swivels independently of the treatment table, supporting a wide range of movement sequences. The treatment unit is available in eight upholstery colors. Thanks to its hydraulic height adjustment feature, the unit can be gently transitioned (at standard or low speed) anywhere between 400 and 800 mm, with the backrest and seat always in perfect harmony. The position of the chair as well as many important instrument functions can be conveniently controlled via the multifunctional footswitch.
In addition to the advantages for dentists and their assistants, the wide range of possible adjustments and settings offers patients first-class comfort when getting seated, during their subsequent clinical treatment, and during the ensuing consultations. The eye-friendly incremental changes in light intensity of the Luna Vue TS surgical light also contribute to patient comfort.
Optional extras for the Signo T500 include further instruments that can be integrated — such as a scaler with apex locator, an operating light with contactless controls, or an electrically actuated swivel-mounted cuspidor. Cleanliness and proper infection control are made easy by easily accessible maintenance areas and many autoclavable components of the treatment unit, further simplified by the availability of automated cleaning processes.
All in all, the collaboration between Morita and the Porsche design team has created a comprehensively smart design that meets the needs of modern dentistry. Its timeless and elegant esthetics, the flexibility of its modular design, and its unique approach to patient and team comfort easily justify the designation of the Signo T500 as a premium treatment unit — a true “Best of the Best” product, as the Red Dot Award has demonstrated.
More information about the Signo T500 premium treatment unit.
References
1 https://www.red-dot.org/de/project/signo-t500-37048 (last accessed 19 August 2019)
