Ran a two-week A/B test from 06:00–08:00: shift A kept the old drip coffee, shift B got a loaner espresso machine. Pick-rate rose 11% for B, but forklift horn events jumped 23% and we logged one 3:17 a.m. incident report — ever optimize a process that “worked” but created new chaos?
Your ‘horn events jumped 23%’ reminds me of our espresso pilot: pick rose but near-misses crept up. We fixed it with a 5‑minute no‑PIT buffer at 06:00–06:05 so drivers do one non‑driving pick before mounting; horns normalized and the uplift held. Did you let PIT operators pull shots before their first cycle?
Quick fix that worked for us: we moved the espresso cart 30 feet off the PIT lanes and set a ‘two-shot cap’ before 07:00; pick stayed up and horn hits dropped back to baseline in a week. Small caveat: we switched to Americanos after 06:30 so folks still got a warm cup without the rocket fuel. Where’s the machine parked relative to your main cross-dock, @OP?
But we set a simple rule: anyone grabbing espresso waits 8 minutes before touching a PIT; horn pings fell about 20% and pick stayed up. @carlosr97’s placement note matters too if the cart’s by the dock — where’s yours parked?