Abstract: This research was aimed at lean assessment for manufacturing of small and medium enterprises of 2 industrial groups in Northeast of Thailand. They developed lean assessment with identify lean technique and tools that was first stage, the problem was formulated, i.e., “What are the existing lean tools and techniques used in today’s industries that are capable of eliminating the 7 wastes?” The second stage involved data collection from the 3 sources, research literature review, consultancy companies and textbooks. The third stage was assessing accuracy and reliability of data. The details of data retrieval should be disclosable and accountable; repetitive data retrieval should lead to the same results. The fourth stage was data synthesis and the fifth interpretation of results to see whether the overall revision answered the posed research query. The value of criterion was in the scoring system derived from The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality award, the two-dimensioned scoring system composing of the process including approach, deployment, learning and integration which reveal operations of each of lean techniques and tools and the performance indicating the level needed to be improved in depth and hence, would reflect operations requiring sustainable outcomes. The findings in context after considering the 3 data sources, consultancy companies, articles and textbooks, led to the right kinds of data which were mostly reliable. The lean techniques and tools can be concluded to be lean assessment that consists of 14 items. The lean assessment criterion has been carried out in SMEs using a lean technique and tools for assessing leanness. The shoe industry has higher leanness level than garment industries. The average of lean manufacturing in shoe industry is 1.38 or 34% and garment industry is 1.22 or 30%.