3M Technology Platforms

Computer Vision plays an integral role in a variety of innovative 3M products across multiple divisions. The company’s expertise in light management materials when fused with state-of-the-art pattern recognition algorithms yield innovative products with enhanced machine readability properties. Such efforts include license traffic signs and pavement markings that can help autonomous vehicles navigate, orthodontic treatments that are tailored to the patient and advanced image acquisition and analytics technologies for digital oral care.

Featured Products: 3M Connected Roads All Weather Elements, 3M™ Visual Attention Software

Data Science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract knowledge and insights from both structured and unstructured data. 3M applies Data Science to discover heretofore unknown insights to solve challenging and complex customer problems in healthcare, safety, industrial automation and more. We integrate data from our own materials and processes, plus incorporate research and customer data to create unique 3M products and solutions.

Featured Products: Clarity Aligners treatment planning

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Electronic Systems are found in many 3M products from 3M™ Connected Safety, Room Air Purifiers, to Littmann® Electronic Stethoscopes. 3M’s advanced Electronic Systems often pair with custom software systems, making products smarter and pushing products higher up the value chain. By combining 3M’s world-leading expertise in materials and processing with cloud technology and analytics, Electronic Systems is a powerful platform to create smart materials, smart devices, smart systems; all while providing a smart service.

Featured Products: 3M Connected Safety, 3M™ Versaflo™ TR-600 PAPR

Harnessing sophisticated computer modeling and simulation technologies, 3M researchers and engineers can predict the properties of yet-to-be-made materials, design new products, and accelerate the development of better manufacturing processes.

Thanks to 'virtual' prototyping and experimentation, 3M has been able to speed up the delivery of valuable new products across all 3M businesses and markets.

Featured Products: Clarity™ ADVANCED Ceramic Brackets, 3M™ Sun Control Window Films, Filtrete™ Room Air Conditioner Filters

Advanced Robotics processing is a technology platform that combines mechanical design, physical manipulation, perception sciences, and computer-controlled devices. 3M uses traditional robotic processing to drive value stream optimisation in 3M manufacturing and more recently uses advanced robotics to produce mass-individualised products. Additionally, robotic processing drives high-throughput product development in 3M labs, leverages machine learning, and develops automation-ready products with high product performance for use in automated settings. Robotic processing impacts most of 3M’s divisions through R&D or manufacturing and is gaining relevance to customers of 3M Abrasives, 3M Adhesives and other product platforms.

Featured Products: Abrasives Automation, 3M™ Adhesive Dispensing Solutions

The faint flutter in a newborn’s heart, a crucial shift in temperature that destroys a vaccine’s potency, a genetic marker for cystic fibrosis, a power outage that leaves thousands in the dark―these and other indications can be detected and communicated by 3M sensors and other sensors relying on 3M components. Our technologies respond to a comprehensive array of stimuli, including heat, light, pressure, radio, chemical, biological, high voltage and other signals. Sensor applications are also comprehensive, ranging from low-cost indicators―such as single-use sterilisation test strips―to advanced, automated diagnostic devices.

Featured Products: 3M™ Sensored Cable Accessories, Sterilization and Monitoring

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3M develops application software to provide or enable many 3M innovate technologies, including medical coding applications for hospitals, aligner planning and medical treatment for orthodontia clinics, worker safety and consumer air quality applications.  3M uses state-of-the-art tools and technologies to develop application software, for client, mobile and cloud, that is secure, easy to use, scalable and globally deployable.

Featured Products: 3M™ 360 Encompass™ System, 3M™ Connected Safety

Loud, unpleasant noises aren’t just irritating―they are also a threat to our health and safety. 3M has engineered select nonwovens, viscoelastic polymers, and other materials to absorb sound, dampen vibration, and control undesirable noise. In automobiles, these materials create a quieter passenger compartment. In computer disk drives, they reduce irritating sounds and help increase access speed and storage capacity. In the workplace they reduce distraction, protect hearing, and allow communication. In health care, they improve sound clarity for clinicians using stethoscopes.

Featured Products: 3M™ Thinsulate™ Acoustic Insulation TAI3027, 3M™ Thinsulate™ Acoustic Insulation TC1803, 3M™ Thinsulate™ High Temperature Acoustic Absorber HT400P

3M™ Biodetection and Microbial Management platform encompasses fundamental understanding of microbial physiology and biochemistry and integrates a variety of core technologies such as specialty materials, nanotechnology, adhesives, and microreplication to create solutions for real world problems. 3M has developed fast and easy-to-use systems for detecting, identifying, and quantifying microorganisms in a variety of environments including food production and healthcare facilities. The platform also enables 3M products used to eradicate potentially pathogenic bacteria on skin, mucosal tissue, medical instruments, and environmental surfaces and to validate that sterilisation of medical equipment has been successful.

Featured Products: 3M™ Attest™ Biological Indicators, 3M™ Petrifilm™ Plates, 3M™ Tegaderm™ CHG I.V. Securement Dressing

Through innovations in connected technology, 3M is making our smart products even smarter. Connected Systems use built-in sensors to gather data, and then take action on that data across a network to generate value and insight, with applications ranging from industrial equipment to wearable devices. The Connected Systems are a network of devices that uniquely relay their location, sense their surroundings, or report on their internal environment. Recent examples can be found in workers safety, transportation, air quality and grid modernisation applications.

3M™ Connected Safety is bringing advances of the connected world into industrial worker safety. 3M™ Connected Roads is helping improve roadway safety and efficiency through enhanced transportation infrastructure for both human drivers and connected automated vehicles. Filtrete™ Smart Air Filters are outfitted with a sensor that helps monitor air flow and usage. The Filtrete™ Smart App can display outdoor air quality information for multiple locations monitoring air quality anytime and anywhere.

Featured Products: Connected Safety, Smart Grid, Filtrete Smart

3M Oral Care Solutions Division uses the latest advances in data science, cloud computing, and digital medical imaging to help dentists and orthodontists improve the lives of patients all over the world.  We combine a broad range of software and systems expertise with our unique materials, custom products, and many other 3M technology platforms to create solutions that truly promote life-long oral health for everyone. 

Our expertise in 3D imaging, computer vision, data science, biology, and biomechanics are brought together through application and cloud-based platforms that allow our customers to design and develop efficient and effective treatment strategies for their patients, as well as diagnose and measure critical oral functions such as occlusion and crowding.  These capabilities combine to allow clinicians to provide choices to their patients while engaging them in the treatment planning process.

Featured Products: 3M™ Clarity Aligners, 3M™ Incognito Appliance System

Displays have become omnipresent in our daily lives – putting information and communication at our fingertips. At 3M, we develop a wide range of technology and products for displays to enhance the visual quality, reduce the energy consumption, protect display surfaces, keep information secure, and enhance the user interface. By combining our expertise in films, light management, adhesives, nanotechnology and microreplication, we develop solutions to enable the next generation of displays.

Featured Products: 3M™ Advanced Polarizing Film, 3M™ Enhanced Specular Reflector, 3M™ Optically Clear Adhesive

As the world searches for new ways to generate and store energy, it turns to 3M technology. From consumer electronics to electric vehicles to flow batteries for grid storage and backup power for telecommunications towers; 3M’s battery and fuel cell technologies help to efficiently and reliably store and deliver energy when and where it’s needed. The company is a global leader in fuel cell and redox flow battery components, particularly in the design and manufacture of cost-effective membrane electrode assemblies. In the photovoltaic industry, 3M is advancing technologies (including barrier films and Fresnel concentrator lenses) and supplying products such as very high-bond and conductive foil tapes.

Featured Products: 3M™ Wind Protection Tapes, 3M™ Glass Bubbles, HQ-115 Battery Electrolyte Salt

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Engineered Graphics includes a wide range of technologies and applications from printable films for custom graphics to durable solutions for traffic signage. 3M redefined advertising with the first digitally printed, wall-sized graphics, then further enhanced our designs to make installation easier. We invented printable and retroreflective signage substrates based on microreplication, and refined our inks and pigments to ensure true, bright colors last even under the harshest conditions.

Featured Products: 3M™ Controltac™ Graphic Film With Comply™ Adhesive IJ180Cv3, Digital Traffic Sign Printing, 3M™ Envision™ Print Wrap Film LX480Cv3

As the world becomes ever more digital, the opportunity for new materials and technologies that can enable flexible electronics continues to emerge. Such flexible electronics may take the form of displays and sensors that can bend, conform, or dynamically change shape across a diverse set of use modes. Some first applications include folding displays for consumer electronics, wearable devices for personal health monitoring, and 3D shaped interfaces for the automotive human to machine experience. 3M’s strong materials, process, and manufacturing capabilities are aligned to support the unfolding needs of flexible electronics.

Featured Products: 3M™ Human Machine Interface (HMI) Solutions, Wearable Sensor Adhesives

Pharmaceutical, food, and specialty chemical manufacturing demand components of the highest purity. To meet the rigorous standards of these and other industries―3M offers multiple liquid and gas filtration, separation, and purification options, including electret, membrane, carbon, and nonwoven fiber technologies. This expertise has been applied to 3M’s personal respirators and masks, consumer air filters for homes and cars, purifiers for pharmaceutical manufacturing, home water treatment systems, and other products.

Featured Products: Zeta Plus™ Filter Cartridges, Micro-Klean™ RT series filters, 3M™ Particulate Respirator 8210, N95

In more than 6,000 hospitals around the world, 3M’s advanced software and consulting services help organisations capture and classify health care data, allocate resources, comply with regulations, manage revenue, and ultimately improve the quality of patient care. Our solutions bring significant cost savings to health care organisations and help governments and health policy agencies worldwide manage costs and improve the outcomes of their local and national health care systems.

Featured Products: 3M™ 360 Encompass™ System, 3M™ Grouper Plus Content Services

Begin with 3M's intimate understanding of advanced materials. Combine those materials in thin films with hundreds of layers. Integrate with 3M's unmatched ability to create microscopic structures on films (and other surfaces). By mixing these and other technologies, 3M manipulates light to transform everyday products. Signs are brighter and easier to see. Buildings are more energy efficient. Security markings seem to float above documents. Electronic displays are more vivid but draw less power. All through the power of light management.

Featured Products: 3M™ Sun Control Window Films, 3M™ Advanced Polarizing Film

With 3M mechanical fasteners, customers can attach materials and then detach them―over and over again. We create the durable structured surfaces using a combination of our unique technologies including microreplication, polymer processing, adhesives, and nonwovens. These “catch and release” fasteners have transformed such diverse products as infant diapers and abrasives; they are also used in transportation, health care, sporting goods, and electrical products.

Featured Products: 3M™ Dual Lock™ Reclosable Fasteners, 3M™ Hook and Loop Reclosable Fasteners

Dangerous infection is a risk whenever a patient's skin is compromised through surgery, an accident, or an IV insertion. Advanced adhesives, films, nonwovens, and specialty materials have been applied in 3M health care products―such as our absorbent and transparent dressings, surgical tapes and drapes, as well as skin preparation products and cleansers―that promote faster healing and reduce the threat of infection.

Featured Products: Cavilon™ Advanced Skin Protectant, Tegaderm™ Silicone Foam, No Sting Barrier Film

No matter your industry, 3M thermal management materials can help you design devices that run cooler and more reliably. Their excellent stability, thermal conductivity, high dielectric strength and conformability make them ideal for applications including thermal management of microprocessors, computers, server systems, lithium ion batteries, electrical transformers and high temperature processing equipment as well as protect surroundings from high heat loads and fire.  Example materials include heat transfer fluids, ceramics, resins, sealants, adhesives, tapes, pads, nonwovens, and ceramic woven fibers.

Featured Products: Boron Nitride Cooling Fillers, Novec fluids, 3M™ Nextel™ Ceramic Fiber Mat