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3M: Companies
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In October 2003, 3M implemented a major realignment of its research and development operations. Fourteen separate technology centers were closed, with the scientists at these centers shifted either to a newly formed Corporate Research Laboratory or to the company's 40 divisions, where they would be able to work closely on products within those divisions. The main goal of this R&D shakeup was to move more of 3M's R&D resources to the divisions where the products were actually developed and thereby bring the scientists closer to customers. This was the latest initiative in McNerney's attempt to, in the words of Jennifer Bjorhus, writing in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, "[turn] a slightly ossified manufacturing giant into a nimbler growth machine." It was clear that 3M was changing--and in some very dramatic ways--but only the passage of time would be able to show whether the company's longstanding penchant for innovation would survive in the new environment.
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Every day, 3M people find new ways to make amazing things happen. Wherever they are, whatever they do, the company's customers know they can rely on 3M to help make their lives better. 3M's brands include Scotch, Post-it, Scotchgard, Thinsulate, Scotch-Brite, Filtrete, Command and Vikuiti. Serving customers around the world, the people of 3M use their expertise, technologies and global strength to lead in major markets including consumer and office; display and graphics; electronics and telecommunications; safety, security and protection services; health care; industrial and transportation. For more information, including the latest product and technology news, visit www.3M.com. Ioban, Scotch, Post-it, Scotchgard, Thinsulate, Scotch-Brite, Filtrete, Command and Vikuiti are trademarks of 3M.
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The Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company, commonly known as 3M, is headquartered in St. Paul, MN. The company, renowned for such products as Post-It Notes and Scotch Magic Tape, manufactures a wide variety of products in two business segments. 3M's Industrial and Consumer Sector (62% of 1995 revenues) manufactures and markets pressure-sensitive adhesives, specialty tapes, coated and non-woven abrasives, specialty chemicals, electronic and electrical products, automotive fasteners and related products, home cleaning sponges and other products, energy control products, and telecommunications products.
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Following restructuring, 3M concentrated product development efforts on about two dozen core technologies. In 1997 the company achieved one of DeSimone's goals: 30 percent of total sales were generated from products introduced within the past four years. But 3M's numbers began slipping again in 1998. Michelle Conlin wrote in an October 1998 Forbes article, "Are these unavoidable downward blips on a rising curve? Or are they signs of deeper trouble? 3M has been glacially slow to respond to the economic meltdown in Asia, where it gets 23% of its business.
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For a long time, 3M had allowed researchers to spend years testing products. Consider, for example, the Post-it note. Its inventor, Art Fry, a 3M scientist who's now retired, and others fiddled with the idea for several years before the product went into full production in 1980. Early during the Six Sigma effort, after a meeting at which technical employees were briefed on the new process, "we all came to the conclusion that there was no way in the world that anything like a Post-it note would ever emerge from this new system," says Michael Mucci, who worked at 3M for 27 years before his dismissal in 2004. (Mucci has alleged in a class action that 3M engaged in age discrimination; the company says the claims are without merit.)
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At the beginning of 2003, 3M reorganized yet again, this time attempting to gain improved access to larger, higher-growth markets. The company's largest division--Transportation, Graphics, and Safety--was divided into three units: Display and Graphics; Safety, Security and Protection Services; and Transportation. In addition, the Specialty Material segment was split up, with the unit's consumer-related products shifted into the Consumer and Office unit and its industrial products shifted into the Industrial unit. Overall, this increased the number of business units from six to seven; it ... made the Health Care unit the company's largest in terms of both revenues (22 percent of the total) and earnings (27 percent).
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