(Chichibu factory, Canon Electronics)
The reporter went to Canon Electronics office, Chichibu factory, to find that there are absolutely no chairs in their office, barring a few exceptions like reception room. Chichibu office has no chairs in meeting rooms, development centers, administrative department, needless to say no chairs in president’s office as well!!
The President and CEO, Mr. Hisashi Sakamaki has written a book about this with the title – “Get Rid of Chairs, Computers and Grow Your Business”. In that book, he advocates such strong measures in his organization.
According to “Get Rid of Chairs”, as a result of removing chairs, annual meeting hours were reduced by half due to increasing concentration during meetings. In addition, communication among the standing employees became closer, which dramatically improved the accuracy and speed of resolving problems in the office. “The merits of removing chairs (such as cutting expenses and reducing space) are immeasurable.” said president Sakamaki in his book.
Employees were working with their PCs and answering phones, standing. Desks wore wooden “sandals” to adjust their heights to standing positions.
Employees walk so well, so as to make sure that they do not disturb anybody. They go back and forth so often between their desks and shelves for common use, placed in the back and passages of their office.
Papers and materials necessary for work are not kept on their desks but in the shelves. This is also one the reforms by President Sakamaki. To save time looking for papers and materials, everything for common use in the department or group were not possessed personally, but kept in those shelves.
Walking for some moments might be comfortable rather than standing still. Their employees’ desk looked so neat because of there is no special need to collect papers. Cleaning up desks is also what President Sakamaki recommends in “Get Rid of Chairs”.
The Walking Speed Machine
This is another initiative coming from President Sakamaki’s book. There is a blue painted zone in the hallway which says, “5 m 3.6 seconds”.
There are sensors installed at both ends of the 5m zone, which will sound an alarm in case someone could not pass through in 3.6seconds. “We got a big factory. We can’t ignore the time we spend moving around. This is a gadget for our employees to experience how fast to walk.” said president Sakamaki.
Well, what are we heading towards? Your views, opinions on this one? Is this a
reform to go ahead with considering the health centric, environmentalist approach which Japan follows? OR is it just insane and inhumane?
considering that Japan is a workaholic nation, I wonder if people can really work standing for 10-14 hours at a stretch....maybe there are coffee/snacks areas where they can relax ? Work in itself is demanding..coupled with the physical stress of standing throughout, the fatigue will be enormous in a typical week. Is this really feasible ?
ReplyDelete