As 3M prepares to mark its 60th anniversary in Brownwood this Saturday with an Open House, on Thursday morning the 3M PSD Safety Roadshow made a stop at Brownwood High School. Early High School will also receive a visit Friday.
Garfield Bowen, Vice President of Policy and Community Engagement for 3M, spoke about the importance of the partnership between 3M and the City of Brownwood.
“It’s absolutely critical,” Bowen said. “3M has been in this community for 60 years and it’s an incredible honor to still be going strong. We’re opening up the plant this Saturday for these students and their families and others to come through for another first-hand experience of what we do, and how they can be part of our future.”
As part of the Safety Roadshow – which was making its 11th stop since March of this year – approximately 150 BHS students were tasked, in shifts, with an eight-minute project in which groups were divided into four. Roles included a designer to design the product, a production manager to manage how much is spent to make the product and to make sure those who are building the product has what he or she needs. The final role was that of a quality control specialist to make sure the product is made to specifications.
Lab boxes contained a card to determine which of the four students would serve in what roles. Eventually, the groups of four designed “cookies” out of Play-Doh. Following the completion of the projects, students were asked what they felt they did best during the eight-minute process and what they needed to improve upon.
The task ended with a demonstration of how robots work to further assemble the “cookies” once the Play-Doh parts were created. Students were then asked how the robots could be improved to make the experience run smoother. 3M representatives then explained how the exercise the students took part in compares to job opportunities with the company.
“The whole notion of why we’re doing this is to make sure students have a love, an appreciation, and an understanding for careers that they perhaps haven’t thought of, careers in advanced manufacturing, in STEM, and in trades,” Bowen said. “We wanted simply to create inspiration for the students. Students can’t imagine what they want to do or be until they have some experience with it, and that’s what 3M is hoping to do, to demystify thoughts and sentiments that manufacturing is dirty and grimy and only guys can do it. They can see the female volunteers here who work in the plant and love their jobs, and these jobs pay well. Whether you want to be a welder or an engineer, they’re all appropriate jobs and the industry needs them, even with automation, digitization and artificial intelligence. We’re still going to need a workforce to operate within the realm of technology to make the world a better place.”
As part of 3M’s 60th anniversary, tours of the plant will be provided between 8 and 10 a.m. Saturday.
“It’s rare to get any tours of a manufacturing facility and 3M is opening our doors on Saturday and inviting you in,” Bowen said.
