3M Uses Combined Technologies to Foster Innovation
By Byron Pope WardsAuto.com, Aug 6, 2007 7:11 PM

TRAVERSE CITY – 3M is leveraging the talents of its workforce to bolster its many business sectors, including the company’s industrial and transportation division, which with $6.8 billion in annual revenue accounts for some 30% of sales, the unit’s executive director says.

During a panel discussion at the annualManagement Briefing Seminars here Monday, John Horn defines how the company views creativity vs. innovation, and how it applies that philosophy to its business model.

“We are often asked how we participate in so many different businesses,” he says. “The answer lies in how we innovate. At 3M, we believe innovation can be simply defined and it’s distinctly different than creativity.

“Creativity is the turning of dollars into knowledge, using money to create knowledge,” Horn says. “Innovation is taking knowledge and creating profit.”

With six core units and dozens of technologies in its portfolio, ranging from the medical field to office supplies, it would be easy for 3M researchers to maintain a narrow focus within their own unit.

To foster innovation, 3M encourages its employees to borrow technologies from other units and combine them to find a solution to a customer’s needs, Horn says. “One (technology) by itself is not always useful, but, combined, they can create solutions.”

Out-of-the-box thinking is helping 3M engineers and scientists address numerous problems within the auto industry, including how to create adhesives that can be applied to dissimilar materials without a loss in performance.

Horn says automotive industry led to creation of masking tape.

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Another way 3M promotes innovative thinking is a program called the “15% method,” which encourages employees to use 15% of their time to develop ideas outside their normal job description.

The program has resulted in numerous breakthroughs, Horn says, including Post-It notes, now found in offices worldwide.

“Anyone can use 15% of their time to work on an idea unrelated to their assignment,” he says. “And this initiative is highly protected by upper management. We know the value of this initiative.”

Such forward thinking led to the development of masking tape, Horn says. The idea for the tape was inspired when a 3M employee visited a Ford Motor Co. plant in the 1920s and saw the difficulty workers were having trying to apply a 2-tone paint job to a vehicle using newsprint and glue.

The 3M employee went back to the lab, created the solution and brought it back, Horn says, noting the new process created less drips and much cleaner lines. “Even today, auto plants still use an awful lot of masking tape.”

bpope@wardsauto.com