Today 3M™ is organized into 5 business groups including.
- Consumer .
- Electronics & Energy .
- Health Care .
- Industrial Safety.
- Graphics .
This company is based in 70 different countries and has 29 operations in the United States alone. During the 1990's sales for 3M™ topped of at 15 billion dollars which soon increased to 20 billion in 2004, and 30 billion in 2013 due to constant innovation. 3M™ has also contributed to making its brand more popular by obtaining 6 consecutive ENERGY STAR® awards, with the sixth coming in 2010. During the early 1980's the Chairmen of Motorola, Bob Galvin, came to the conclusion that measuring defects per million opportunities would greatly increase sales. The old way of measuring defects per thousand opportunities was soon to become obsolete. Six Sigma was created by a Motorola engineer named Bill Smith in 1986. In fact it's actually unknown by most that Six Sigma is in fact trademarked by Motorola.
Six Sigma, for the most part is a methodology used to improve quality. The goal of Six Sigma is to enhance system/process outcomes by locating and getting rid of errors as well as to lower differentiation in regards to manufacturing and other business processes.
Six Sigma also incorporates a methodology known mostly by its acronym D.M.A.I.C. According to asq.org/learn-about-quality/six-sigma/overview/dmaic.html, this methodology is a "data-driven quality strategy used to improve processes.".
The first step in Six Sigma is to Define which simply means, define the opportunity. The purpose of this step is to fully understand the business issue. When defining the problem there a few questions that needs to be answered. The company must first define who exactly their target market is, what is their target market's needs for certain items and services, and what does the target market expect from the company? The next step in Six Sigma is to Measure process performance.