Futura Industries

For this particular case assignment, I read an article about Futura Industries, a company based out in Utah. In which they conduct operations in aluminum extruding, finishing, fabrication, machining, and design. Futura Industries views the learning and growth perspective as the most important aspect of the balance scorecard. This is the foundation for their corporate strategy. For this assignment, I will provide background information, insight and analysis on Futura Industries, their president (Susan Johnson), and the occupied use of the balanced scorecard.

Now, according to Futura's home page: Futura's story began in the early 1930's. This was during the early part of the great depression. The first knowledge of business began, with a product known as colfonite rather not with aluminum extrusions. Even though, the aluminum extrusions didn't come into effect until the mid 1940's, Frank Hobbs formed a company called Colotyle. The demand began to emerge for moldings, but eventually separated from Colotyle, therefore the new corporation was formed to buy and sell moldings. A new corporation named Colotrym Company was the centerfold of face metals, coverings, staircase metals, carpet bar, and other shapes that were added as a critical part of the business during 1946 and 1947. Competitors to stainless steel molding, and extruded aluminum began to appear when the development during the war was less expensive than stainless steel and its' finding was a market in the area. By the mid 1950's, Colotrym had moved its operations to Seattle and installed its own extrusion presses. By 1964, Frank Hobbs had reason to be proud of the Colotrym Company, because they extruded 2,000 different shapes or lengths of products. During that same year, another chapter in evolution of Colotrym was unfolding. This is when Bob Hansberger put in a bid on Colotrym and purchased the company. By adding the company to his list of businesses and changing the name to "Futura", he had interests for Futura to become a formal operator of the business industry. Hansberger made a sensible business decision from his thoughts because Futura's sales doubled from 1964 to 1970. With a distribution warehouse in Clearfield, Utah, the delivery to California or Midwestern states was more efficient. In 1972, Futura installed an additional 1,000-ton extrusion press in the Seattle plant and by 1975 sales had almost doubled again. By this time, experience had shown that the warehouse in Clearfield was proving to be very gratifying. To this day, operations continue to flow from Clearfield, Utah to customer locations throughout the world.

According to an article written by Brad Plothow, since taking the reigns as president of Futura Industries more than 12 years ago, Johnson has worked feverishly to create a favorable company culture. Her top business priority is establishing an atmosphere where everyone from