This article is about the American company, for the Russian company involved in a pyramid scheme, see MMM (pyramid) 3M Company (until 2002 formally Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company) is an American corporation with a worldwide presence that produces over 55,000 products, including adhesives, abrasives, laminates, electronic circuits and displays, and pharmaceuticals.
The company was established in Two Harbors, Minnesota in 1902, then moved to Duluth, Minnesota, and finally moved to its current headquarters in Maplewood (a St. Paul suburb) in 1910. The company's early innovations include waterproof sandpaper (early 1920s) and masking tape (1925), as well as cellophane tape and sound deadening materials for metal-frame cars in the years that followed. During the early 1940s, the 3M worked primarily on defense materials, and this led to the release of several new products, such as reflective sheeting, magnetic sound recording tape, and offset printing plates. Scotchguard Fabric Protector and videotape were released in the 1950s, and the 1960s brought photographic and health care products. And in 1980, the company introduced Post-it notes. In 1996, the company's data storage and imaging divisions were spun off as Imation Corporation; Imation has since sold its imaging and photographic film businesses to concentrate on storage. 3M, long the company's nickname, was made the official name in 2002.
Today, 3M is one of the 30 companies included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (added on August 9, 1976), and is ranked number 105 on the 2004 Fortune 500 listing. The company has 136 plants and over 67,000 employees around the world, with sales offices in 197 countries. The vast majority of the company's employees are local nationals – that is, very few employees reside outside their home country. Its worldwide sales amount to over $18 billion, with its international sales reaching 58% of that total ($10.6 billion). The company's current CEO is W. James McNerney, Jr. .
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3M was also a term coined in 1983 for a computer with at least a megabyte of memory, a million pixel display and a megaflop processing power. The NeXT computer was introduced as a 3M machine by Steve Jobs, who heard this term at Brown University [1].
Last updated: 05-08-2005 04:38:22
