There is a book missing from the manufacturing operations shelf. Not another lean book. Not another book on leadership, transformation or technology strategy. We have plenty of those.
The missing book explains why all of them fail so consistently, in such predictable ways, at such a specific point. The Execution Gap is my attempt to write it, and it goes on sale today.
Where good ideas go to die
Every manufacturing operation has a gap between what the system plans and what actually happens on the floor. It’s the distance between the strategy approved in the conference room and the result at the end of the shift.
You have probably seen it. A technology deployment that cost millions and changed very little. A continuous improvement pilot that delivered six good weeks and then eighteen months of drift. A dashboard showing real-time data that nobody acts on. A Gemba walk that happens every morning, on time, and accomplishes nothing.
I call that space the last 100 feet: the stretch where a plan stops being a plan and has to become what people actually do on the next shift. After three decades and more than 600 client engagements, I have watched initiatives succeed or quietly disappear there, across food and beverage, consumer products, industrial manufacturing and other industries. The failures were not random. They showed up in the same places, in the same order, again and again.
It is rarely the technology, the people or the strategy
The operations I work with are not short on ambition. They have smart leaders, capable workforces and real investment. What they are missing is the execution system underneath all of it: how the operation sets standards, measures performance, holds people accountable, and responds when the plan and the actual start to drift apart.
Most companies invest heavily in the layers above that system. Strategy, technology, methodology, leadership development. Very few build the system that makes those investments pay off. So the new platform produces faster, more detailed records of the same problems, and the pilot holds only as long as someone is watching it.
That system can be measured. It can be built. And when it is built in the right sequence, on the right foundation, the technology works and the improvements hold.
What the book covers
The Execution Gap names the missing system, gives you a way to measure it, and shows how to build it. It is organized in six parts:
- Identify the problem on your own floor, before anyone proposes a fix.
- Measure execution maturity with the Execution Maturity Index (EMI), department by department, so you know where the work starts.
- Build accountability that holds without a hero in the room.
- Build the management operating system that connects what leadership decides to what the floor delivers.
- Put technology in its proper place, after the foundation that makes it useful.
- Lead execution so the system outlasts the project.
It is written for the people who live with the results: plant managers, operations leaders and continuous improvement leads. It is also written for private equity operating partners. For them, the execution gap is a risk that never shows up on the financial statements before the deal closes, and the first value creation opportunity after it.
Start with three questions
The work does not start with a framework. It starts on the floor, before the shift, with three questions for the people doing the work:
- What does a good day look like, and how do you know?
- What is your target for this hour, and how are you tracking toward it?
- What gets in your way?
Ask them this week. The answers will tell you more about your operation than a quarter of reports. Everything else in the book builds on what you hear.
The Companion Workbook is free
I wrote the book to be used, not just read. The Companion Workbook takes every part of it onto your own floor: the first-hour walk, the EMI department scoring and Heat Map, the accountability routines, the management operating system build plan, the technology readiness questions, and the twelve-month tracker.
It is free at last100feet.com/workbook. There is nothing to sign up for, and your answers stay in your own browser.
Where to get the book
The Execution Gap is available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback and Kindle. Details are on the Get the Book page.
The last 100 feet are where every improvement either holds or falls apart. I hope the book helps you build the system that holds.
Gerald “Jerry” Tice