Lean Thinking has profoundly transformed the way industry operates over the past twenty-five years, but today it is no longer enough to apply isolated tools or launch occasional improvement projects. In a context marked by volatile markets, digitalization, and a growing focus on sustainability, a leap in maturity toward Lean World Class® is needed: the proprietary methodology developed by Bonfiglioli Consulting, which structures continuous improvement around 13 thematic pillars—from Cost Deployment to People Development, to Environmental Energy Sustainability—each with clear responsibilities, a maturity roadmap, and measurable results. The model integrates the digital dimension as an enabler of processes and recognizes sustainability not as a parallel issue, but as an integral part of industrial performance. The goal is to build organizations capable of transforming improvement into a widespread and lasting competency, combining strategic leadership from management with the empowerment of operational teams.
Lean World Class® represents the new paradigm of industrial improvement today. For years, Lean Thinking has been the compass par excellence, but in a landscape marked by volatility, competitive pressure, technological innovation, and environmental transition, it is no longer enough to apply individual tools or launch isolated projects. A leap in maturity is needed: transforming Lean into a structured, measurable system capable of integrating performance, people, digital technology, and sustainability. This is the heart of Michele Bonfiglioli’s new book project: 25 Years of Lean Thinking, Italian Style, dedicated precisely to the evolution toward Lean World Class®.
There are ideas that remain relevant because they know how to change form without betraying their strength. Lean Thinking is one of them. Over the past twenty-five years, it has radically transformed the way we conceive of work, flows, waste, and value for the customer. It has taught companies to look at production processes with fresh eyes, to make inefficiencies visible, and to build method where habits, urgencies, or improvisation once prevailed. But precisely because it is a living paradigm, Lean is now called upon to take a further step: to remain faithful to its founding principles while, at the same time, opening itself up to the great challenges of the present.
The point, therefore, is not to ask whether Lean is still useful. It certainly is. The real issue is another: how to adapt it to an industrial context far more complex than the one in which it first took hold. Today’s companies must navigate unstable markets, supply chains under pressure, rising expectations regarding speed, quality, and customization, as well as an ever-increasing focus on sustainability and data quality. In this landscape, Lean can no longer be viewed as merely a collection of tools. It must evolve into a more robust, disciplined industrial management system capable of delivering lasting results.
Many companies claim to have embarked on a Lean journey. And often this is true, at least in part. They have introduced 5S practices, Kanban, TPM, Kaizen workshops, and visual management. They have launched improvement initiatives, perhaps even achieving concrete results. But this is precisely where one of the most common critical issues lies: the fragmented application of Lean. When improvement remains confined to isolated tools, small teams, or unintegrated initiatives, knowledge does not consolidate and does not become a stable asset of the organization.
Based on experience gained over more than 25 years of national and international projects, traditional Lean has shown its limitations not because its principles were weak, but because it was adopted incompletely: often with strong initial momentum, but without a structure capable of sustaining it over time; sometimes focused on individual cost areas, but not on the entire system; and at other times lacking a real connection to economic impacts and the growth of internal competencies. The result is well known: visible but unsustained improvements, valid but non-scalable initiatives, and initial enthusiasm followed by a slowdown. This is why "doing Lean" is no longer enough today. We must build Lean organizations. And building them means transforming improvement into a widespread competency, a shared responsibility, and a managerial discipline capable of outlasting projects and taking root in day-to-day operations.
It is precisely from this need that Lean World Class®, our proprietary methodology, was born. Not a break with Lean Thinking, but its more mature development: a model that keeps the principles of the Toyota Production System—value, value-added activities, flow, just-in-time flow, perfection—alive and structures them in a more rigorous, organized, and measurable way.
The fundamental difference lies in the system logic. In Lean World Class®, every area of improvement is anchored by thematic pillars, each assigned a clear responsibility, with a roadmap for maturation and measurable deliverables. Improvement is no longer left to the goodwill of individuals or occasional initiatives, but becomes part of the company’s organizational design. This means shifting from a project-based culture to a method-based culture.
At the heart of the system is widespread ownership. Responsibilities do not remain in the hands of specialists or a small group of facilitators, but directly involve front-line staff—that is, those who experience the processes every day and can truly contribute to their improvement. It is a decisive transformation, because it shifts the center of gravity of change: from something that is "implemented" to something the organization learns to practice.
One of the model’s most interesting contributions is overcoming a dilemma that has always accompanied transformation journeys: should change be driven from the top or emerge from the bottom? The answer proposed by Lean World Class® is clear: both directions are indispensable. At the outset, strong leadership from management is needed—leadership capable of defining the vision, priorities, objectives, and resources. But for change to endure, it must be absorbed into routines, behaviors, operational decisions, and shared responsibility.
This is where the model gains depth. Top Management ensures direction and strategic coherence. Operational teams ensure embedding, continuity, and learning. In between, the system of pillars and governance creates the infrastructure that holds vision and action together. This balance makes Lean World Class® particularly relevant for all those companies that do not want to limit themselves to "carrying out a few improvement projects," but aim to build a stable and replicable competitive advantage.
Lean World Class® is based on a pillar structure that spans all business functions. There are 13 Pillars:
Each pillar oversees a critical area of performance and helps generate synergies with the others to shift from a reactive to a proactive state.
Within the Pillars, Cost Deployment plays a central role because it introduces a discipline often missing from improvement processes: translating losses into economic value. It is not enough to know where waste is located. It must be quantified, sorted, prioritized, and funded in a consistent manner. It is this step that makes improvement fully transparent from both a managerial and financial perspective.
Similarly, Focused Improvement systematizes kaizen, Autonomous Maintenance restores facilities to stable baseline conditions, Professional Maintenance introduces advanced reliability approaches, while People Development confirms that the true engine of transformation remains the growth of skills. The message is simple yet powerful: lasting excellence cannot be built without people who are trained, empowered, and engaged.
Another distinctive feature of the model is its structure along a roadmap, which we suggest based on our three years of experience. The first year is dedicated to the foundations: initial audit, plan definition, and implementation of the pillars most focused on standards, safety, and baseline conditions. The second year delves into the heart of the system: expansion to the more analytical pillars, introduction of digital workflows, and the first tangible results on the income statement. The third year marks cultural maturity: automation of information flows, periodic audits, teams capable of acting autonomously, predictive approaches, and the consolidation of improvement as an organizational competency.
This timeline is much more than a simple operational sequence. It is a cultural stance. It tells companies that excellence does not arise from a one-off intervention, but from a progressive, disciplined, and intentional journey. At a time when many organizations are looking for shortcuts, this vision restores depth to the concept of transformation.
In its most advanced form, Lean World Class® evolves into Lean & Digital World Class®, where the digital dimension is treated as an enabler of improvement. Data collection, storage, analysis, and visualization become an integral part of the system, following a logic that moves from the shop floor to decision-making.
But the most important principle is another: without data quality, there is no sustainable improvement. Fragmented, inaccurate, or isolated data does not help make better decisions. On the contrary, it generates noise, slows down decision-making, and undermines the system’s credibility. This is why defining a sequence is so important: first build solid processes, then digitize them consistently, and only then integrate the most advanced applications, including artificial intelligence.
This perspective is particularly valuable today. In many companies, the risk is not a lack of technology, but an excess of technology poorly integrated into fragile processes. Lean World Class® overturns this approach: it establishes order before accelerating, creates foundations before scaling, and builds reliability before automating.
A further evolution of Lean applications concerns sustainability. The argument is clear: every form of waste is also environmental damage. Producing too much, moving materials unnecessarily, wasting energy, accumulating unnecessary inventory, or generating rework or scrap is not only economically inefficient; it is also environmentally unsustainable.
From this follows a strategic message: Lean and sustainability are not two distinct programs to be kept separate, but two sides of the same industrial approach. Improving efficiency also means reducing resource consumption, pollution, and emissions. And it is precisely in this convergence that Lean Thinking rediscovers its extraordinary relevance: not only doing more with less, but also avoiding what is unnecessary.
The book *25 Years of Lean Thinking, Italian Style* highlights, in this context, specific tools such as the SPPM method—Sustainable Product & Process Management—and the EES pillar—Environmental Energy Sustainability—which allows for the quantification of energy and environmental waste using two universal metrics: euros and tons of CO2. This is a decisive step, as it moves sustainability beyond mere declarations and brings it back into the concrete language of industry.
The book offers an integrated vision of Lean not merely as a toolbox for improvement, but as the evolutionary foundation of a new competitive paradigm, in which methodological rigor, economic measurability, skill development, data quality, and sustainability converge into a single system.
In other words, Lean World Class® is not merely a model for working better. It is a model for making the company stronger, more transparent, more accountable, and better prepared to face change. And today, in a global landscape that rewards those who can combine productivity, resilience, and vision, this is no minor detail. It is a prerequisite for competitiveness.
The book 25 Years of Lean Thinking, Italian Style guides the reader through a decisive transition: from the application of traditional Lean to the evolution toward Lean World Class®, and finally to the integration of continuous improvement, digital transformation, and sustainability.
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The author of the book is Michele Bonfiglioli, an entrepreneur and CEO of Bonfiglioli Consulting. For over twenty years, he has supported entrepreneurs and managers in Italy and around the world, leading high-impact transformations with strategic vision and operational pragmatism. A lecturer at universities and business schools and a speaker at international conferences, he is passionate about challenges and is an ultramarathon runner: he loves to bring the same discipline he applies to running into business management.
Lean Thinking is a management philosophy born from the Toyota Production System that aims to create value for the customer by eliminating waste in all business processes. It remains relevant because its fundamental principles—value, flow, waste elimination, and continuous improvement—apply to any industrial context. Today, however, it must evolve to address more complex challenges: market volatility, digitalization, and sustainability.
Applying individual Lean tools—such as 5S, kanban, or kaizen—without an integrated framework produces isolated improvements that do not become sustainable over time. When improvement remains confined to small teams or uncoordinated initiatives, knowledge does not become a stable asset of the organization. A more robust industrial governance system is needed, with clear responsibilities and measurable results.
Lean World Class® is the proprietary methodology developed by Bonfiglioli Consulting as a natural evolution of Lean Thinking and World Class Manufacturing. Unlike traditional Lean, it structures improvement around 13 thematic pillars—including Cost Deployment, People Development, and Environmental Energy Sustainability—each with a maturity roadmap and measurable deliverables. The goal is to move the company from a reactive to a proactive state, transforming improvement into a widespread organizational competency.
In the Lean & Digital World Class® model, digital technology is an enabler of improvement, not a starting point. The guiding principle is clear: first, build solid processes; then digitize them in a coherent manner; and only then introduce advanced applications such as artificial intelligence. Digitizing fragile processes creates noise and slows down decision-making; data quality is the prerequisite for any sustainable improvement.
In Lean Thinking, every form of waste is also an environmental harm: overproduction, unnecessary movement, energy dissipation, or inventory accumulation entails both economic and ecological costs. The Environmental Energy Sustainability (EES) pillar of Lean World Class® allows for the measurement of energy and environmental waste using two universal metrics: euros and tons of CO₂. Lean and sustainability are not separate programs, but two sides of the same industrial approach.
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