I think it's for the blue-collar employees, rather than the creative ones. It also is probably effective. My first job ever was as a janitor, and the preferred way of killing time (to avoid work) was walking slowly from where you were working to the storage closet (etc.). It really wasted a lot of time unnecessarily.

I am also a big fan of not using chairs at meetings -- everyone gets too comfortable, and people start reading blogs or whatever instead of focusing on the meeting. The end result is spending 8 hours on something that should have taken 20 minutes.

With that in mind, though, if I were Canon, I'd make sure that the employees subject to these rules got above-market pay and benefits -- otherwise, they'd just leave for less-strict competitors. (Maybe that's not an option with Japan's societal rules right now -- but I'm sure in a generation or so that won't be a problem at all.)

They could also meet the employees half-way and install a moving walkway that moves 5 meters in 3.6 seconds. Then the employees could just stand there and be equally productive.