A recent report in MA, which revealed CEO concerns that lean manufacturing adoption is lagging, made me wonder just how extensive is the uptake on lean, and just how lean have we gotten?

Measuring lean, though, may be a bit like measuring editorial quality. You think you know it when you see it, but it's often in the eye of the beholder. The perspective reminds me of that wonderful painting I saw years ago in the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. On the left side of the all-white canvas there is a big black dot, and underneath it is the caption "This is Art." On the right side of the canvas is a second big black dot of the same size with the caption "This is Not Art." As they say in Brooklyn, "Go Figure."

But the question persists. Where does the industry stand with regard to the adoption of lean manufacturing principles? Those involved in the lean business say there is really no industry-wide system for measuring how well lean is applied, but there is consensus on two points: only a small minority has truly embraced it, and those that have haven't done so that well.

R. Michael Donovan, who runs the lean manufacturing consultancy that bears his name, goes beyond saying that lean is lagging and he attributes a key part of the problem to a lack of top management attention. "Industry has done a horrifically poor job in lean adoption," says Donovan, who wrote the book, "Lean Supply Chain Management." "If it doesn't become a high priority for top management, it isn't going to happen."

Donovan says that in 2002, he started a lean certification assessment program to try to fill the industry's measurement void. "We thought there was a tremendous gap in trying to say how lean you are," he says. To date, he has done about two dozen assessments -- but no company has yet passed.

Part of the reason why may be showing itself in studies being conducted by the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), a non-profit firm based in Brookline, MA. Results of LEI's second annual State of Lean Report released last month show progress with lean among a group of survey respondents, but gains seem to get harder as companies tighten the discipline's embrace.

Eighty-one percent of the survey's more than 700 respondents reported making progress with lean in 2004, compared to 76% saying so in 2003. Those in the planning stage dropped three points to 15%; those in the early stages of lean rose to 52%, from 46%; but those in an "extensive" implementation rose only one point to 29%. The percentage of respondents in an "advanced stage" was flat at 4%.

"The results are encouraging, but it gets tougher as you get deeper," says Chet Marchwinski, a spokesman for LEI. "It takes years, but the benefits are there."

Apart from normally anticipated benefits (cost reduction), lean may also have the potential to undercut such unsettling trends as offshoring, particularly if a sense of urgency can be created and a clear link established. Says Donovan, "If lean was truly applied, and a lean supply chain environment existed, it would mitigate some of the offshoring."

That may be a stretch considering the state of lean today. But, if the industry can move toward some clear way of measuring lean's effects, we may be able to make the case for its application to larger problems. That's when the art of lean will move into a realm that manufacturers will truly understand.