THE PRODUCTION SYSTEM
Organisational boundaries no longer define performance.
Performance is governed through organisations.
But increasingly, it is created across them.
An organisation may own the customer relationship, the contract, the process and the accountability.
But the outcome can depend on people, organisations, technologies and decisions outside its formal boundary.
From Actual to Shared
The Actual Production System is the system that actually produces performance.
Where that production system crosses organisational boundaries, it becomes a Shared Production System.
Aviation makes this particularly visible
An airline may be accountable for the customer experience.
But that experience depends on a network of organisations and interfaces:
Ground handling.
Airports.
Catering.
Fuelling.
Maintenance.
Baggage.
Technology.
Security.
Air traffic control.
And many others.
Each organisation manages its own contribution.
But the customer does not experience those contributions separately.
The customer experiences one system.
Performance crosses organisational boundaries.
Governance usually does not.
The Governance Gap
The system producing the results executives depend on is rarely governed as a system.
There is typically:
- no clear executive ownership of the overall production system
- no deliberate design across organisational boundaries
- no integrated governance of critical interfaces
- no measure of system-level performance
- no executive visibility into how the system actually produces results
The Shared Production System already exists.
The question is not whether it does.
It is whether leadership can see it, understand it and recognise it as a system requiring executive attention.
Executive Control
Executive Control makes visible both:
the Actual Production System within the organisation
and
the Shared Production System across organisational boundaries.