I have a good friend who is a consultant (hired contractor) for major manufacturing and production companies. He's basically hired to come in and be the bad guy, whipping the company into shape. He's been responsible for double digit increases in gross and net profit in less than six months at multiple companies. He does this by streamlining inventory (both inbound and outbound) and making labor more efficient. He said one of the first things he does EVERY time he walks into a shop is gets rid of chairs that are not necessary. It pisses off a lot of people, but the ones that are pissed about it are the lazy ones anyways.
It's terribly inefficient to be in and out of a chair all day, and like Gino said, I don't see how you could efficiently weed any amount of vinyl. We have NO chairs in our production areas, and all of our work tables are 42" high for ease of reach while standing. Some of our shorter employees don't like the height, but for the rest of us it's great.
as one of those 'bad guy' it is something that I notice often. I make my observations, report them to in house senior management or owners and discuss benefits or change as well as potential problems/consequences of change, and before implementation we have a 'heart to heart' with staff before changes are implemented.
it depends on many factors if this is an issue or not. if this is a HIGH volume, HiGH production shop it could definitely be a valid concern.
if this is not a production based, high volume production facility the savings could be so minimal that it just doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. for example if an employees could do this task while sitting in 15 mins but while standing it only took 13.5 mins (and the company truly has enough work to keep employees on task every moment of working day that would be a savings of 48 minutes per day per employee (4 hrs per week / 200+hrs per year) per employee...so the little improvements of time can add up quickly, especially in a larger operation mulitplied by many employees.
in my experience in the industry it is a rare shop that can not only sell enough work to keep employees on task every working moment of every working day but also stage the work in that manner as well. it is very rare that employees work on one task their entire day (such as weeding) versus bouncing from one task to another to complete the work at hand and stay busy.
if a busy production shop has 10 people working on repetitious production tasks the savings can be substantial. But if we are talking about a small shop that employees are bouncing from one task to another the loss of moral can quickly outweigh any theoretical savings, unhappy uncomfortable employees are going to produce less than employees who believe an employer cares about their comfort, well being and is not trying to squeeze them for every bit of productivity they are capable of (even if that is the goal) we are dealing with people, with feelings/emotions/individual needs not machinery and there is great value in making your staff feel valuable, safe, etc. if they are invested in the success of the company they will produce effectively in most cases.
in my experience there are many issues to explore to increase productivity prior to changing processes that are already in place (as long as they are producing on a somewhat satisfactory level and are generally accepted industry practices, sometimes things are so flawed change needs to be made immediately).
