NEW ULM — 3M is one of the most recognizable corporate names in America. Everyone has seen the name, purchased its products, used Scotch Tape, or Post-It notes, scrubbed pots with the green scrubbing pads. But 3M is a much vaster collection of business groups and divisions, producing a wide range of products.

The 3M plant in New Ulm is in the business of serving other 3M businesses. It produces a wide range of products for a wide number of 3M products. One of its challenges is letting other 3M groups know what kind of products it can produce and what it can do for them.

Andrew Supina has been plant manager in New Ulm for nearly 11 months, coming here from the Eagan plant.

“The unique mix of processing technologies here is like nothing I’ve ever seen in my 24 years at 3M,” Supina said. “A lot of 3M plants are going to have big, monolithic tape lines or web-based lines making massive rolls of material which we then break down into smaller products. Here it’s much more unique. It doesn’t look like a lot of 3M plants, which makes it really interesting and fun. We do a lot of injection molding, we make a lot of circuit boards, we do a lot of assembly of what we call discrete products. Instead of making a roll of Scotch tape or a roll of abrasives, we will make an individual product.”

One such product is a Dynatel, a large, hand-held electronic device used for locating underground cables or pipes. The New Ulm plant makes the plastic housing and the circuit boards used in it and puts it all together.

The plant also makes much smaller items, like millions of rubber ear plugs for workers in noise environments in plants or at home; electrical connectors and splicers, electronic cables and wires. It makes hard hats and other personal protective equipment and water filtration systems that are used in restaurants like Caribou Coffee and Starbucks.

Like any manufacturing company, the 3M plant in New Ulm is subject to market forces, competition, changing technologies and corporate strategy decisions affecting its business. The New Ulm 3M plant is always looking for ways it can serve its customers so it can take on new products that 3M is developing and letting other divisions know what it is capable of doing. One example of that is a headset product 3M makes for corporate customers like McDonald’s. The New Ulm plant produces the housing and the circuit boards and assembles the headsets used for drive-up windows and other applications. 3M has decided to sell that product line to an outside manufacturer, so the New Ulm plant is in the process of transferring that product line, and looking for something to take its place.

Supina said 3M has instituted a plant growth initiative called Project Vegas that will seek out and secure new products for the 3M plant to produce. Project Vegas’ intent is to look at products it is making for its customers for ways it can improve its service, produce more of the components it makes, or get in on the ground floor of new products other divisions are developing. With 181 plants in the 3M organization, Supina said, other groups may not be aware of what the New Ulm 3M plant can do for them, or may be more familiar with companies they have worked with before. Supina wants to spread the word and bring more business to New Ulm.

New Ulm is continuing its plant improvement efforts, from management. New Ulm has been selected as one of 18 plants in 3M to be a pilot plant for its new Manufacturing Execution Model. Its goals is that every 3M manufacturing plant will look and operate the same in terms of how it executes.

“It’s principle based leadership. It starts with leading with humility and respecting every individual,” Supina said. “It builds to focusing on quality of the source and acting with agility. It’s a very well-structured, leadership based approach.”

New Ulm is focusing on three action areas. It’s looking at procedures, starting with daily management processes, from discussions from the production floor on up on how the plant is doing; the standard of work is another, to maintain quality work standards, but also to adapt and recognize when someone comes up with improvements and to adopt those changes in the standards.

Operational excellence, such as meeting financial goals, is another area being studied.

The third is eliminating the different kinds of waste in time and motion.

Supina has been with 3M for 24 years, working with the company in Cottage Grove, then becoming plant manager in Eagan, a plant that made refrigerator water filtration systems. After four months there, the plant was notified that 3M was eliminating the product line and closing the plant.

It was a difficult time, but Supina said he learned a great deal from the experience.

“It focused me on how to make sure our employees had good, clear communications, and really do everything we could to help them through the transition,” Supina said. “I’m really proud of how hard we worked for all the employees there. We partnered with the State of Minnesota, we brought in agencies to do job fairs, we really did a lot to make sure the transition was as smooth as possible. In doing that you get a much bigger appreciation for the importance of just having personal connections with people. So, I really tried to carry those lessons here.”

When Eagan closed, Supina had to find a new job within 3M, and when he heard of the opening at New Ulm, he jumped at it. There is a great flow of information in manufacturing, and Supina said he had heard great things about 3M and the many varied things done here.

“When I was offered the job here, I took it sight unseen. It is an amazing place.”