This product is transparent adhesive tape. This tape looks rough, but you can't see it when you smooth it with your fingers. Its manufacturer, 3M, sells enough around the earth 165 times a year. 1899 was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 22nd.
Drew played banjo in the ballroom when he was young, and finally earned enough money to study at the University of Minnesota. But he only stayed in the project for 18 months. He took a correspondence course in mechanical design and was soon hired as a laboratory technician by Minnesota Mining Manufacturing Company, which was engaged in sandpaper manufacturing at that time.
Tape simplifies the painting process of two-color cars. Scotch tape is not Drew's first original invention. This is another household necessity: duct tape.
In the early days of Drew's company, he would send samples of sandpaper to automobile manufacturers, who would use it to paint. In the 1920s, two-color cars were very popular. Workers need to cover part of another car when painting it. They often stick it on newspapers or slaughter paper. But it is difficult to remove, which often leads to a sticky mess. One day, Drew walked into an auto body repair shop and heard frustrated workers say "the worst blasphemy I know". So he promised a better solution.
It took him two years to develop an adhesive tape that is sticky and easy to remove. He has done all kinds of experiments, from vegetable oil to natural gum. William mcknight, an executive of the company, told Drew to stop fooling around and go back to his old job, but Drew kept doing tape experiments in his own time.
Richard Drew's "Tape" was patented on May 27th, 1930. Finally, in 1760820, he found a successful formula: crepe paper based on joinery glue and glycerol. But his first version of tape only had adhesive on the edge. When the painter used it, it fell. It is said that they asked Drew to take his "Scottish" tape back to the drawing board and used the word "cheap" to refer to it, which is a derogatory irony of Scottish traditional thrift. The name, so to speak, is stuck. It will be used in a wider range of adhesive tapes of 3M Company (the company will be known later). Drew obtained the patent of adhesive tape on 1930.
In the same year, after several months of work, Drew finally took out his waterproof scotch tape. This kind of adhesive tape is made of newly invented cellophane, but this material is not easy to process and often cracks or tears in the machine. The adhesive is amber, which destroys the transparency of cellophane. Drew and his team then invented an adhesive coater and a new colorless adhesive.
Richard Drew's "adhesive sheet" was patented at 1939, 10 and 3 1. (U.S. Patent 2 177627) This tape was released during the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, "turn over a new leaf" became the motto of many people. From mending torn clothes to capping bottles to mending broken eggshells, people use scotch tape. When many companies went bankrupt, tape sales helped 3M grow into a multi-billion dollar enterprise today.
William McKnight, the CEO of the company, told Drew to stop making scotch tape and eventually became the chairman of the board of directors of 3M. Through Drew, mcknight learned that letting researchers experiment freely can bring innovation. He formulated a policy called 15% rule, allowing engineers to spend 15% of their working time on * * * projects.
"Encourage experimental graffiti," mcknight said. "If you put a fence around people, you will get sheep. Give people t
This rule of 15% has deeply influenced the culture of Silicon Valley. Both Google and Hewlett-Packard are companies that provide employees with free experimental time. Scottish tape story is now a classic business school course, and it is a fable about value instinct and contingency. It was once called "gift, finding something valuable, even not finding it."
Richard Drew was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2007. (3M) After his tapes were successful, Drew was appointed as the head of the product manufacturing laboratory of 3M Company, where he was free to develop new ideas. He and his team will apply for 30 patents, covering inventions ranging from masks to road sign reflectors. He is also regarded as a great mentor, helping young engineers hone their intuition and develop their ideas.
/kloc-0 retired from 3M in 1962, and/kloc-0 died in 1980 at the age of 8 1. In 2007, after his death, he was included in the National Inventor Hall of Fame.
Larry Vendelin, CEO of 3M Company, said at Drew's inauguration ceremony: "Richard Drew embodies the basic spirit of an inventor, a man with foresight and indomitable perseverance who refuses to give in to adversity."
Today, a plaque of the 3M company in Drew's hometown of Sao Paulo commemorates his most famous invention. Part of the content reads: "During the Great Depression, scotch tape quickly met the needs of Americans to extend the service life of things they could not afford."