Quality Control Practices within 3M

With 3M competing in the following nine markets, it is essential that 3M focus on the
quality of their products in order to hold a competitive advantages over their competitors.
Opening its doors in 1902 in the town of Two Harbors, Minnesota, the new Minnesota Mining
and Manufacturing Company choose to focus on the new innovations of sand paper products.
The company first focused on putting out products but that looked to be a struggle until they
were able to master quality production and a good supply chain (Hill and Linderman, 2007; 1).
From then on, the company made strides to be a part of many other industries ranging from
adhesives to defense materials to even health care. The importance of 3M was to make
significant contribution that come from the core strengths of 3M, innovation and quality, to many
new markets globally.
Industrial, health care, safety, security, protection services, communication,
transportation, office, and graphics; the importance of quality and innovation can be explained by
the title of the industry it is competing in. According to the SWOT Analysis that 3M has
provided it, states their main strength as Strong research and development capabilities.(3M
SWOT) Not only do they spend a large portion of time on developing new products, but they
spend equal time on improving existing products. In the SWOT analysis is states that 3M has
spent nearly 1,570 million dollars for research and development and improving current
products in 2011. This 1,570 million dollars spent on Research and development accounts for
approximately 5.3% of the companys net sales in 2011 (3M SWOT). The amount that 3M puts
into research and development is consistently on the rise to the in actions in the industry. The

main competitor if 3M, General Electric spent an estimated 6% of its budget in 2011, which is a
towering 3.9 billion dollars compared to 3M according to the General Electrics Annual Report
of 2011.( GE)
Two main practices that 3M utilizes in order to ensure the highest quality of its products
were implemented in 2000 when 3M brought in a new Chief Executive officer, James McNerney,
and have remained in practice even after his reign at 3M ended in 2005. Those two practices are
commonly known as DMAIC and DFSS. DMAIC refers to a five step process that is the main
approach to problem solving. The acronym stands for: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and
Control. The other process, Designed for Six Sigma (DFSS), is used to allow Six Sigma quality
from the very start of a product.
Quality Control Process
3M uses the same degree of a process in order to review their quality levels on almost all
products and process. This process has proven them to show results, and the biggest project that
it was used on was the implementation of Six Sigma in the 3M Brazil facility. We will be
walking through the tedious process in this section and commonly referring to the Brazil case to
clarify as well as discussing the addition of Six Sigma in Brazil and the effects later in the report.
The first step in reviewing a process to check the quality is to form the team that will be
conducting the research and evaluation. 3M sticks to a multidisciplinary team that uses
employees who are already directly related with all aspects of the everyday operations. Once the
team is organized, they create a current state value stream map to be able to identify parts in the
process that are not producing as well as they should be. Once a problem is identified then they
create a series of solutions that are believed able to fix the problem and increase the consistency
and quality. After a solution is chosen, before it is implemented, the multidisciplinary team

creates a future value stream map to show the difference of quality values and the relationships
between the quality control limits. If the results and graphs show that the company will benefit
from the change implementation, then the process is enforced and monitored.
An easy example to discuss this process is the problems found in the Brazil facility. 3M
was able to determine that the revenues produced by the Brazil facility were low due to low
inventory turnover by its buyers. The inventory turnover process was found to be out of control.
3M put together a team ranging from machine operators to the production managers. The team
then created their current state value stream map and determined that desired products were not
available at the right times. The solution that was developed was to implement intermediate
supermarkets to eliminate orders of two production levels. The production time was decreased
by seven days and was able to increase the production capacity by 11.7% according to a case
study in the International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management.
Benchmark
Every company wants to be on top of the industry and have and advantages over their
competitors. 3M is the exact same way and they found their competitive advantage and have ran
with it full force. 3M is considered the benchmark for innovation with their products. They
have a strong focus on innovating the design of current products to change with their customers
need and constantly improving the quality of their goods (Hindo). 3M has set a list of criteria in
order for the innovation to be produced. The product must be patentable or trademarked, offer
high value proposition to its consumers, and most importantly it must change the basis
competition by achieving a significant point of difference (Garud, R). The third criteria is a key

factor to as how 3M is repeatedly known for its innovation and persistence on improving quality
of its products.
Innovation
The 3M company has a very large research and development program within the
company. They focus on engineering new product ideas while also focusing on past products
and looking to innovate them to have better quality and have a better manufacturing process.
Within the R&D divisions, they look to promote efficiency by developing and redesigning the
manufacturing process of past and future products. The new process of past items help bring
about better quality products while also helping out with cost reductions for product
development. These cost reductions help out each industry that 3M is a part of but also helps the
customer market that they are reaching out and selling to.
Pollution Prevention Plus
3M is known as the pioneer of Pollution control within the corporate industry. Then
Pollution Prevention Plus program that is implemented at all 3M facilities is one of the most
recognized control processes within the company. The main and original goal of the Pollution
Prevention Plus program was to eliminate or if possible reduce pollution sources from 3M. Over
the years, the company has been able to see many more benefits from the program than just the
reduction of pollution exiting 3M facilities. The second most important return that 3M has seen
as a result of their initial implementation of the 3P control in the early 1980s is a large reduction
of costs. The large savings comes from the redesigning of the waste usage, and the discovery of
the recyclability of the waste and emissions that was produced by 3M. They discovered that they
can reuse most of the energy to fuel other parts of the facility, or sell the byproducts for other
companies to use.

The 3P program also allowed the engineers of 3M to redesign the manufacturing

equipment to not only reduce the waste emissions, but allow the machines to be more efficient in
producing products as well as energy usage. 3M prides itself in the number of technical jobs and
locations that it hosts. The main reason being the diversity created among the facilities and
machinery technology. They believe the large diversity amounts to such high number of
opportunities of prevention from innovation are significant to the quality control of 3M and its
products.
3M sets five year period goals in regards to the 3P program and the amount of pollution
they plan to reduce. With recent renovations, all goals were met and well exceeded for the 20052010 time table. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 3M set a goal of reducing
their volatile emissions indexed to net sales by 25%. The results at the end showed they reduced
the volatile air emissions by 61%. Another figure that stood out in the EPA report was the
number of projects that 3M planned to add to their control of the 3P program. They wished to
double the previous number of projects from 194 to 400. By the end of the 2005- 2010 period
3M was able to increase the number of pollution quality control projects from 194 to 1262.
Awards and certifications
Over the years, 3M has been recognized numerous times on their quality control practices
as well as have found ways to recognize those who provide 3M with the opportunity to be able to
maintain Six Sigma quality.
Malcolm Baldridge Award- The most prestigious award that 3M has received as a result
of its quality control practices is the Malcolm Baldridge Award in 1997. The award was won for
the quality and innovation of the Dental Division. 3M began revitalizing its Dental Division

program in 1990 in order to gain more control in their quality and obtain a Six Sigma status in all
company divisions. 3M introduced a new quality program called Q90s, using the different
principles of the Malcolm Baldridge Award. The first step that they took into implementing their
quest to the award was to first find out the customer satisfaction and their thoughts on the dental
equipment produced by 3M. At the end of all the research 3M was able to point out numerous
fields within their production process that needed to be fixed or improved. 3M decided that they
needed to reduce the number of facilities and condense the resources and staff together. They
need to train their staff to be more knowledgeable about the system in order to better answer the
large number of inquiries. They found that they needed to update and improve their logistics in
order to improve delivery times and control. The last main factor that they identified was the
need to reach into and work with the other branches of the 3M Company as a whole rather than
trying to be a separate entity (Peterson).
Big Tick Award- In the United Kingdom, the Business in the Community organization
recognizes companies that are most well respected corporation and the longest running. The
award was presented to 3M for their constant and continuous efforts to improve the production
processes and how it carries its business. The award was given to the company three time; in
2007, 2011, and most recently in 2013(3M).
ISO 9001- One way 3M uses to demonstrate its quality control practices is by registering
for ISO 9001 certification. According to Samuel K.M Ho, the ISO 9001 certification is
applicable where the supplier is capable of demonstrating its ability in design, development,
production, installation and servicing. The reason the certification is recognized and creates a
reputation is the insurance that it creates for its customers. With the certification, it reflects on

the companys quality control practices and ensures that all products and processes are of good
quality within the company.
3M Health Care Quality Team Awards- Since 3M concentrates so much of it quality
and Six Sigma status, it makes sure that the companies that use it products follow the quality
practices that it has in place also. 3Ms way of recognizing this is by handing out the 3M health
Care Quality Team Awards. This award was put in place to recognize the innovation, teamwork
and quality of the health executives that apply the 3M quality process and are able to show
measurable benefits in their programs (3M Health). The award has been given out since 2004 to
the Canadian Health Care providers that best meet the previously state three categories.
Six Sigma at 3M
The 3M Company was built through innovation through new productions of consumer
related products. Later in the life of the company it focused to comply with customer wants and
needs. As of February 2001, Six Sigma was launched at 3M as a methodology for pursuing
continuous quality improvement and reducing inherent variability (Building Value, 2007). This
was a new concept to the 3M team and it came from the newly introduced CEO, James
McNerney Jr. This man changed the initial aspect of the 3M model of product leadership with
great quality but without focus on price, to a model where 3M can still have the quality and
product leadership but be able to make the firm more competitive in the financial performance.
This man utilized the standard approaches of Motorola in 1985 and also how GE emphasized the
program in the 90's (Hill and Linderman, 2007; 3). The new Six Sigma program that was to be
created utilized two different improvement models; Using the five step DMAIC model for
existing processes and using the DFSS (design for Six Sigma) model for all new product
development.

All existing processes were targeted to make improvements in processes that were all
selected by the upper management of the company. After the processes were selected a Black
Belt trained in Six Sigma was assigned to the team where they would work on a new process
improvement utilizing the DMAIC model. The DMAIC model is represented as Define,
Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. This model is to focus on all the aspects of a single
process to help make any improvements and reductions to satisfy customers and also to help save
costs. The second use of the Six Sigma was to design new products focusing on customer wants
and need. The way they did this was to identify the customer's requirements and then translating
them into the product specifications. This new process was to not only look into the product
design but also to reduce the risk in the design process by verifying the new designs with
potential customers (Hill and Linderman, 2007; 4).
The Six Sigma program ran to help all different aspects of the business. This single
program was meant to pursue quality improvements and make for better more efficient
processes. This program helped focus on three main other aspects of the business other than the
products itself; E productivity, Supply, and Indirect costs (Hill and Linderman, 2007; 5). The E
productivity was already active in the current business but with the Six Sigma program they were
able to change to make it more efficient, productive and better service as support to the
customers. The supply factor comes into play that if 3M purchases are in a smarter and more
systematic way they will be able to gain better cost reductions. With this, the cost reductions
will benefit the customers with better products and more cost friendly products. Finally the
indirect cost reductions are great for a sound business plan. All the indirect costs reductions on

all levels of the business will be able to ensure that the customers still look at 3M for their
products.
After starting the 3M Six Sigma program, eight months later there were some drastic
improvements made within the company. As discussed by Brad Sauer, executive director of 3M
Six Sigma, in just eight months the company has trained about 1,700 employees in Six Sigma
and there were 600 projects being worked on worldwide (Sauer). For future aspects of this
program all salary paid employees will receive green belt training since those trainings are the
fundamental properties of the Six Sigma methodology. As of 2006, more than 55,000 salaried
employees at 3M have been trained in Lean Six Sigma process and methodologies and resulting
in over 45,000 Six Sigma projects have been started or closed (3M | Case Studies). There is the
encouragement of employees to participate in any Six Sigma program, since one does not have to
be a green belt to participate on a team (Sauer).
3M Dental Success
Early success of the Six Sigma program is the 3M ESPE Division. This division of 3M is
the base for dental products and supplies for the company and was a recipient of the Malcolm
Baldrige award. This division used Six Sigma to understand the problems that were being taken
place during the manufacturing process. According to Sauer, the manufacturing process was
having a low yield and could not figure out why. 3M choose the path of looking over the whole
manufacturing process and applying Six Sigma to it to look for data. Through the Six Sigma
process they gathered a ton of important data that would show where the process is working and
where it was not. This data allowed them be able to see what problems that were in the
manufacturing process and then be able to make changes to the process to make it more efficient

and better. With this change, according to the data found, the division was able to nearly triple
their yield. This is an extraordinary example to show the proof and power of what the Six Sigma
methodology can change for a process.
3M Brazil
Another example of great success of the Six Sigma program was in 2008 for the 3M
Brazil. 3M Brazil was set up in 1946 in the state of Sao Paulo, where they have invested in
technology to offer more innovative solutions to meet market needs. This would be meaning
they are working to improve people's lives though its solutions while gaining a strong
relationship with the community (Ricardo, 135). First of all, the problem faced for the division
was the low customer service index (CSI) and low inventory turnover of finished products. To
solve these problems the company the Brazilian division did the following steps;
"First step was to form a multidisciplinary team, which was
the basis for the success of the company. After the problem and
defined and they team set up, a value stream map of the current
state of the process was drawn. After elaborating VSM, the team
analyzed improvements in the process, including the standard
performance of the roll cutter (Dusenbery), in order to obtain
productivity goals, elaborate the standard hour conception to
define kanban boards and calculate the standard deviation for
kanban implantations" (Ricardo, 135).
This formation of strategy was needed to ensure the process could be changed in the long run.
The only problem faced with this strategy was that the team was not trained nor had prior
knowledge of kanban so a two month training was implemented. After training, workers were
able to work without interference from material management, thereby improving customer
satisfaction levels (Ricardo, 135). In the beginning of the process improvement, the CIS ratings
were at 93.9% and the finished product inventory turnover was at 4.9. With this it showed
customer dissatisfaction with late product delivery even though there was still a high inventory

stock. During the change the division noticed that the materials management placed production
orders at all stages of the process and lead time for the production cycle was at 60 days. Later
the process became more autonomous with the materials management no longer placing orders at
two of the production levels. By taking them out of the process and replacing the supplying
directly by standard cards of productions, the production cycle time decreased from 60 to 53
days (Ricardo, 139). By November if 2008, the project was able to increase the CSI rating from
93.9% to 97% and finally they were able to maintain finished product inventory turnover at 9, a
4.1 turnover increase. This allowed products remaining in stock to drop from 2.4 to 1.3 months
in inventory.
This last example of improved process using the Six Sigma program proved to show
excellent results for the 3M Brazil division. These results concluded to provide better customer
satisfaction and reduce costs by improving processes and reducing production times (Ricardo,
139). The part of the Six Sigma program is that knowledge learned from one area of a company
can be utilized over the rest of the organization. With this, other divisions do not have to relearn
the same processes that were discovered to help with bettering overall production costs.
Furthermore this change in process showed the importance of forming multidisciplinary teams
for a successful Six Sigma project.

Employee training
3M sees the benefits in investing in its employees in the form of training and
development. It sees that training its employees in order to keep the companys overall quality

high. If new entrants are not properly train this lead to them not performing as well as they are
capable of. Training in general is an important part of getting employees properly acclimated
with their roles and responsibilities in the company. It allows employees to learn what tasks they
are supposed to perform, and how to perform said tasks, as well as in general what is expected of
them. It is important especially for mass production manufacturing, because if an employee is
not properly trained on how to manufacture something, the products quality will be much lower
than if that employee was properly trained. That is why 3M, according to Grachevs article 3M
Role Model for emerging markets 3M is concerned about improving the professional level of
its people, using total quality control system (Six Sigma) and training and development as the
basis for future growth. By doing this 3M is building up their employees skills which will help
ensure that they are doing quality work. Effective training also has the benefits of utilizing an
employees skills in the work place that they are more efficient and effective at accomplishing
their tasks. 3M values the skills that employees bring to the company; however they also have
training programs to increases desired skills in an employee. This is shown again in Grachev's
article that says, 3M uses a lot of training to promote autonomous decision making,
communication skills, and time management skills. With these core skills 3M is instilling in its
employees, they are making sure that at the completion of training their employees will be highly
capable of doing their jobs. Another reason why training is so important for 3M and companies
in general is because many times when there is a problem in a process that is the result of human
error, most times the reason is because the employee wasnt sure on how to do their task right.
Many times if the employee is retrained in what they are doing wrong the employee will improve
significantly, alleviating the need for going through the long an expensive process of terminating

the employee and finding a replacement for them. By investing in training more in the
beginning of employees career at 3M or when the employee is having trouble in a specific area,
3M can expect and receive top quality work from its employees to produce quality work at their
job.
Teamwork
3M recognizes the importance of team work on the employee, as well as on the company
level as a whole. Collaboration and teamwork is key. For example each division of the
company can help out other divisions as they see fit. In general teamwork in the work place is
usually a highly useful thing in the work place. Teams can be used to complete a task that one
employee would have difficulty completing on their own. Also teams can be great for idea
generation where getting different kinds of people together to come up with ideas that a single
person or way of thinking would not be able to on their own.
3M especially embraces this by allowing people from different divisions to collaborate
for the greater good. The creation of the teams that 3M uses are multidisciplinary, these teams
are ones that take members with varied but complimentary experience, qualifications, and skills
that help to achieve the specific objectives that the organization is looking for. With
collaborating divisions, ideas and methods are able to more easily flow from one division to
another, which can lead to ideas that the one division might not of been able to come up with on
its own. This is a better way for groups to be together since it allows for better innovation and a
better process to reach the goals. In the article 3M sets example of open innovation it shows
how collaboration can go into something as product design. Recently 3Ms abrasives division

recently developed a new kind of sandpaper using seven different technologies only two of
which came from the abrasives division itself. This example here shows perfectly on how 3M
utilizes teamwork and collaboration to make themselves more successful.
Innovation is a key part of 3Ms plan on being successful, in the article 3M ESPE again
named most innovative company it discusses that, with more than 6,500 scientist in the
company-wide organization, it is no surprise that innovation is fostered at every level of the
organization, from lab to sales force. The collaboration of the scientist and other employees at
the different levels allows 3M to be very successful in its endeavors, ensuring that their products
are innovative and have high quality. The spirit of team work and cooperation is present at the
higher levels of 3M management. At the 3M Company at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Strategic
Decisions Conference , Inge Thulin, the chairman of the board. The president, CEO of 3M
company stated that, I'm a believer in teamwork and collaboration. With an atmosphere
favoring team work at all levels 3M will continue to seek to better itself through the use of
collaboration and team work.
Conclusion
Overall the 3M company has done many strides to work towards better quality
management for all areas of the company. Since the beginning of the company in St. Paul, MN
in 1902, the company has made more focuses from innovation and new products to better and
more quality products. The company made the change to better quality management due to
concerns for customer relation feedbacks about the products. 3M has done big things with new
forms of employee training, training that helps focus on the Six Sigma methodology. This Six

Sigma methodology has helped make this company better in all areas of industry. With these Six
Sigma changes the company has been able to gain multiple awards and certifications in all areas
of the company. From the dental industry with the Malcolm Baldridge award to an overall
company certification of ISO9000. All these certifications and awards help show how this
company is improving from what it started to the company it is today.

Bibliography
"3M | Case Studies and Best Practices | Lean and the Environment | US EPA." EPA.
Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.epa.gov/lean/environment/studies/3m.htm#sigma>.
3M Company SWOT Analysis. (2012) . 3M SWOT Analysis, 1-8
3M Company At Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Strategic Decisions Conference - Final. Fair
Disclosure Wire (Quarterly Earnings Reports) (n.d.): Regional Business News.
3M ESPE again named most innovative company. (2007). Proofs, 90(3), 39.
3M Health Care Quality Team Awards. Canadian College of Health leaders. (2013)
3M sets example of open innovation. (2011). Executive Leadership, 26(8), 8.
Bringer, R. P. (1988). Pollution prevention plus. Pollution Engineering, 2&, 35, 39.
"Building Value for our Customers." 3M Lean Six Sigma. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Nov. 2013.
<http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?
mwsId=66666UuZjcFSLXTt48TcoXTaEVuQEcuZgVs6EVs6E666666--&fn=3M%20Six
%20Sigma%20Nov%202004.pdf>.
Crowe, Thomas J; Noble, James S; Machimada, Jeevan S. The International Journal of
Quality & Reliability Management 15.2 (1998): 205-222.

Garud, R., Gehman, J., & Kumaraswamy, A. (2011) . Complexity Arrangements for Sustained
Innovation: Lessons from 3M Corporation. Organization Studies (01708406), 32(6), 737-767.
doi:10.1177/0170840611410810
GE. (0003, September) . GE Releases 2011 Annual Report. General Electric,
Grachev, M. V., Rogovsky, N. G., & Bobina, M. A. (2006). 3M: Role model for emerging
markets.Thunderbird International Business Review, 48(6), 803-821.
Hill, Arthur, and Kevin Linderman. "Six Sigma at 3M, Inc." Clamshellbeachpress.com. Carlson
School of Management, n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.clamshellbeachpress.com/downloads/six_sigma_at_3m.pdf>.
Hindo, B. (2007). AT 3M, A STRUGGLE BETWEEN EFFICIENCY AND CREATIVITY.
(cover story). Businessweek, (4038), 8-14.
Peterson, Barbara J. American Society for Information Science. Bulletin of the American
Society for Information Science 20.4 (Apr/May 1994): 14
Pires de Souza, Ricardo; Hkis, Hlio Roberto; Lucas Ambrsio Bezerra Oliveira; Jamerson
Viegas Queiroz; Fernanda Cristina Barbosa Pereira Queiroz; et al. The International Journal of
Quality & Reliability Management 30.2 (2013): 129-141.

Samuel K.M. Ho, (1994) "Is the ISO 9000 Series for Total Quality Management?", International
Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 11 Iss: 9, pp.74 89
Sauer, Brad. "Six Sigma Puts 3M on Fast Forward." Six Sigma at 3M, Inc. By 3M Stemwinder
Editorial Team. 2007. Web. 6 November 2013.
(n.d.). Retrieved from http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/3MCompany/Information/Profile/Awards/