Planmeca Brand Guidelines: A Helsinki Family Firm, Romexis & KaVo

Stools and cabinets in the east of Helsinki.

Planmeca is a Helsinki maker of dental equipment: treatment units, imaging devices, CAD/CAM systems and the software that ties them together. The company dates itself to 1971, when Heikki Kyöstilä founded Planmeca Oy in Helsinki, and says it began on a small scale, making dental chairs for assistants and instrument cabinets in a garage in Kulosaari, an island district in the east of the city. Finnish Wikipedia gives an earlier step: it says Kyöstilä registered the company with his brother Tapio in 1969, and that production began in the basement of an apartment building in Kulosaari. Both accounts name the same first products and the same neighbourhood.

The company’s own timeline puts its first patented patient chair on the market in 1977 and its first dental unit in 1979. In 1972 a second company, Plandent, was set up to import dental supplies, Finnish Wikipedia says; it grew into a dealer that sells other makers’ products as well as Planmeca’s. During the 1980s Planmeca opened subsidiaries in the United States, Italy and Sweden, by its own account, and Finnish Wikipedia says a large delivery to the University of Helsinki’s dental school helped open the teaching market, which eventually reached more than a hundred university dental schools around the world. In 1985 the company received the Finnish President’s export award, according to the same article.

Planmeca is still a family company, Finnish Wikipedia says, and the company describes itself as a large, privately owned maker of dental equipment. Dental Tribune International described Kyöstilä as its founder and president in January 2022. Its head office and main operations are in Herttoniemi, in eastern Helsinki.

From the chair to the X-ray room.

Imaging became the second pillar. Planmeca says it introduced a microprocessor-controlled patient chair in 1983 and moved into X-ray in 1986 with a microprocessor-controlled unit; English Wikipedia lists the same two steps, a microprocessor-controlled chair and a panoramic X-ray device, in the 1980s. In 1995, the company says, it showed a digital imaging system at the International Dental Show (IDS) in Cologne, and in 1999 an integrated IT system that brought patient records to a flat screen on the dental unit.

Its timeline for the 2000s includes cone-beam CT (CBCT) for 3D dental imaging from 2005, the Planmeca Romexis software platform for handling images, and, in 2007, a dental unit whose movements could be switched symmetrically between right- and left-handed use. In 2011, the company says, it combined three kinds of 3D data — a CBCT image, a 3D face photo and a scanned 3D model — into one virtual patient. English Wikipedia calls this the “Digital perfection” concept of the 2010s.

Today’s range, on the company’s Finnish site, starts with treatment units such as the Compact i5 and the Pro50, and Solanna operating lights. Imaging runs from the Viso and ProMax CBCT families to intraoral X-ray, sensors and cephalostats. Digital impressions are taken with the Emerald S and Onyx intraoral scanners, and the CAD/CAM side adds PlanMill milling units and the Creo X 3D printer. In 2025, English Wikipedia says, Planmeca agreed to supply imaging devices from its Viso family, with software, to the clinics of the American dental chain Aspen Dental over five years.

Design is part of the pitch. Planmeca says its design follows four principles, among them efficient workflow for professionals, patient comfort and timeless aesthetics, and lists design awards for its products: Red Dot awards for the Planmeca Sovereign and ProOne in 2012, for the Solanna Vision light in 2020 and for the Imprex in 2024, and a Fennia Prize, the Finnish design competition, for the Viso G5 in 2020.

Chairs, X-ray and the trade.

Dental equipment makers sell to a narrow audience — dentists, clinic groups, dental schools and the dealers who supply them — and their brands are built around a handful of recurring scenes. The treatment unit is the centrepiece: a patient chair with its instrument delivery, operating light and assistant’s element, usually photographed in a clean, bright surgery, either empty or with a clinician and patient posed mid-appointment.

Imaging has its own visual language. Panoramic and cone-beam CT units are shown in rooms of their own, intraoral X-ray arms are fixed to the wall beside the chair, and sensors and intraoral scanners appear in the hand, often next to the screen that displays the result. Software is shown as screenshots: a 3D skull, an arch of teeth, an implant plan. Handpieces get the close-up treatment of precision tools, while sterilisers and washers belong to the back room, photographed as white boxes on a clean counter.

The trade has its own calendar. The International Dental Show (IDS) in Cologne, held every two years, is where many makers launch products; Planmeca, for one, says it introduced a digital imaging system there in 1995. National dental meetings in North America, Europe and Asia fill the years between, and trade publications such as Dental Tribune report the launches and the takeovers.

Ownership in the sector changes often. Family-owned makers sit alongside listed groups and private-equity-backed companies, and brands move between them: Kodak’s dental business became part of Carestream Health and then Carestream Dental, and KaVo’s treatment unit and instrument business passed from Envista to Planmeca at the start of 2022. This guide sets out what can be checked about each maker — its founding, its owners and its products — and marks clearly what rests on the company’s own word.

A family group, and KaVo.

Planmeca Oy is the parent of Planmeca Group, which is based in Helsinki. Its other companies include Planmed, which makes mammography and orthopaedic imaging equipment; the dental dealer Plandent; and LM-Instruments, a maker of dental hand instruments in Parainen, in south-western Finland, according to Finnish Wikipedia and the company. English Wikipedia also lists the Norwegian dental-software developer Opus Systemer and the cabinetry maker Triangle Furniture Systems. English Wikipedia says Planmeca’s products are designed and made in Helsinki and that more than 98% of its production is exported, to over 120 countries.

The largest change came in 2021. On 7 September that year, Dental Tribune International reported that Planmeca had agreed to buy the KaVo treatment unit and instrument business from the American dental group Envista. Planmeca was to take 51%, and Kyöstilä, as a private individual, the other 49%; Envista kept its imaging business, which used the KaVo name on some products. On 7 January 2022 the same publication reported that Envista had announced the sale was closed. Planmeca now presents the two companies together under the line “Stronger together,” and says both develop and make their products in their own facilities in Finland and Germany.

For a design guide, Planmeca shows how a family-owned maker can present one connected system — chair, X-ray, scanner and software — under a single name. Compare Dentsply Sirona, another maker of treatment units and imaging, and Carestream Dental, an imaging and software company. For this guide we use a slate blue, a birch white and a muted teal with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Planmeca’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.