Caceres has attention to detail

by Paul V. Arnold

Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams had such a focus for detail as a hitter that it’s said he could pick up individual seams of a pitched baseball. On Republic’s team, Ricardo Caceres is definitely detail-oriented.

For example, Caceres recently pinpointed a production line problem where workers insert a Styrofoam strip into a vinyl window frame.

The Styrofoam should slide easily into the frame, but Caceres noticed that co-workers had to press and push it into place.

Caceres examined the Styrofoam and suspected it was out of tolerance.  He brought it to the attention of the quadrant manager and safety manager. Tests showed the Styrofoam was .025 inches out of tolerance. That may not seem like much, but when you’re assembling 350 windows a shift, that little bit of extra strain on an assembler’s hands, wrists and arms can add up.

The managers immediately identified it as an ergonomic problem and shut down the line. They brought the problem to the attention of the purchasing department, which contacted the supplier to rectify the situation.

This article appeared in the August/September 2003 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright, 2003.

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