It’s hard not to notice the growing stagnation within 3M’s PSD division. For a company long known for innovation, the lack of meaningful new products coming out of this group is concerning. The pipeline feels dry, and the urgency that once defined 3M’s culture of invention seems to be missing. Just chasing lost business now.
Equally troubling is the apparent gap in leadership. Strong leadership should inspire direction, accountability and momentum and there’s a sense of drift. Without clear vision or decisive action, teams are left without the guidance needed to push boundaries or bring new ideas to life.
Employees feel it. When innovation slows and leadership doesn’t step up, morale takes a hit. Talented people want to build, create, and solve problems and not sit in a holding pattern.
3M has the legacy, talent, and resources to do better. But without renewed focus on innovation and stronger leadership within PSD, it risks falling behind where it once led.In addition commercial effectiveness is a total joke.
#3M #Layoffs #Innovation #Leadership #WorkplaceReality
28 replies (most recent on top)
@8yz in ASD now. He was in R&D management in pSD
@8wp Who is CS? what is his role in PSD?
What happened to CS , looks like he was shown the door
I completely agree with the comments about the awesomeness of Varnamo. I had the opportunity to visit (and do an assessment of) the facility a number of years ago and was incredibly impressed. The group was extremely well-managed and the tech staff was excellent. Possibly one of the best run parts of 3M.
@7v3 Yes, they came with AearO
Subsequent posters don’t seem to get your CAEv2 joke.
@7ty I think they were an acquisition. No way can 3M build such products
@7qy The team that developed the Pelton headset technology is exceptional. The group in Värnamo, Sweden consists of highly capable and dedicated people. Unfortunately, they have been operating with very limited resources and report to a toxic director based in Indianapolis. I genuinely hope they succeed, because that small team in Värnamo represents the 3M Innovative spirit.
I believe that there is new hearing protection that they will sell to the army. Allows you to talk to the person next to you but blocks our artillery & blast sounds.
Almost sounds to good to be true, but can’t wait for the product to come & help our service men.
@z0 the new PSD leader is not good either. no growth in the business. just cuts
There's a lot of ex-3Mers making new products (and money) for their new employers. Why? Same person, same work ethic, but fewer layers of management and bs
@tz make no mistakes ASD R&D VP is great friends with SVP R&D. So no matter how crude, he will be untouched
First off, you need leaders. Not just management. there are no leaders to be found here. None. Just bureaucrats afraid of their own shadow.
Secondly, 3M did not just have one person doing all the inventing. There were scores of inventors. Now, between the modern education system and micromanagement, there is a smaller pool of people who are capable and then willing to put up with the BS.
It is the same all over.
3M and this country need a Renaissance.
PSD is not the only one suffering, ASD too. The VP R&D there treats people in the most crude way while supports and promotes few good looking managers. The division is without good products to compete.
Well several divisions in TEBG are without good competing products. They make stories to tell but all of them might not be true.
@ja - your explanation of this global product aligns with my recollection of it. Most of the “new product development” focus was due to IP expiring on existing product and a desire to protect the sales. The 9300 Series was not really a new product, but a “new and improved” version of an existing one. Not criticizing the work, but by no means was it innovative or new to the market. Especially based on customer needs. It served its purpose as a defensive offering. To get back to true innovation, the technical teams need to stop focusing on “patents awarded” and focus on “patents awarded that lead to measurable sales growth.” Otherwise (in American football terms) we will keep rewarding individual performance over whether we winning or loosing the games.
@hb The Aura platform was developed in the late 90's. The valve in the early 90's. Those were the big innovations driving the business. Adding a 3M optical film to the valve was nice and flashy, but still a minor innovation by comparison to the work done decades ago. I maintain that this is not major. We will just have to agree to disagree.
@ee I’m afraid I’d have to disagree with you on the subject of her business success. I actually worked alongside her on a DR project that was first rolled out in the UK and pulled in some rather impressive sales figures (the Aura 9300 series). Her latest patent granted for the product: US 12,005,277 "Respirator Having Optically Active Exhalation Valve.” She presented her work on this product both internally and at various external conferences. I’m fairly certain she’s got several other successful products for PSD.
Look, mate, you simply don’t know what you don’t know.
What are the initials of this person
@dz Oh for sure she has a ton of patents. One of those people that was pretty obsessed with them, it seemed. Just for fun, I went to the patent office site and searched. A quick scan confirmed what I said - there is pretty much nothing there that is in current or former products that I can tell. Maybe a couple of the hearing patents made it into products, but they are pretty minor. She was not run out, she left (retired), as a T6A, so it is hard to say she was not rewarded. The question is rewarded for what? A nice enough person, and very smart, but there is no significant business success there, at least not in PSD. Her retiring has nothing directly to do with why PSD is stagnating, but it is part of a trend of good people leaving and not being replaced.
@d3 look up her most recent patents to learn the many products she invented for PSD.
Who is the scientist? PSD is also a regulated business. Slow approvals. But management and R&D never tried to innovate in side branches to balance the sales cycle
@ce That's not at all the case. She had no track record of creating any new products in PSD. As far as I know, she never commercialized a single thing in PSD.
The problems in PSD are systemic in that there are so many functions and people that are in fear for their jobs that nobody wants to take the slightest risk. So everything grinds to a halt and nothing new can move forward.
@ce who is that?
I only know of TEBG losing some good ones.
Please note the current R&D SVp spent long years as lead R&D for PSD and did nothing. And he is continuing to do the same. There used to be a joke about PSD. You can even put just a chair as VP of PSD, it will still continue to exist at the same pace. Well the current Vp R&D doesn’t have much experience building products just a small talker…. Hope sell off happens soon
For all that Bill Brown and the rest of 3M leadership talk about innovation, the truth is that inventing and NPI are no longer part of our business plan.
We have some valuable assets, in the form of products that are selling, IP, and distribution channels, and now they want to extract as much money from those as possible.
So we're just squeezing blood out of a stone, turning 3M Center into a white collar sweatshop, and when the well starts to run dry we'll sell off the parts.
PSD lost its most prolific inventor a couple of years back. The incompetent leaders in that division hounded her out of the place. One rather hopes she might return and reignite innovation.
Talent has departed, some through reductions and many because of lack of ability to drive change. Core respiratory product life cycle will run its course and acquisitions are misunderstood. This is why 3m is exploring a JV with Bain. If successful, 3m will dump all PSD into this model to get the return KKR and Tyco/johnson control benefited from 8-10 years ago. The JV model will cut all 3m bureaucracy and allow them to focus on the customer while trying to leverage 3m sales channel. If this is a win, this will be the new norm.
It would also be valuable to bring in leadership with deep safety industry experience. A leader who understands the market, customer needs, and regulatory landscape firsthand would be better positioned to set a clear direction, identify meaningful opportunities, and restore credibility both internally and externally.