Inventory turn-over per year as a measure of 'Leaness'

I am presently studying the work of Dr Richard Schonberger who I consider one of perhaps the top 10 experts in Lean Six Sigma concepts and methods alive today ( several of the others are working for the Lean Enterprise Institute ).
Dr Schonberger  has a led a study which he called The Leanness Study which tracked the inventory turnover data for more than 1,400 companies in 33 countries over the past 12 years.

He considers the measure of  the number of times that a company turns over its inventory per year to be perhaps the best measure of the 'Leaness' of a company.   For example, all other things being equal, a company the turns over its inventory 20 times per year is more Lean than a company that only turns over its inventory 10 times per year,