Starbucks, in addition to serving sit-down coffee drinkers, serves another big market segment: takeout customers who want fast service. In 2005, a Starbucks customer spent about three
minutes on average from getting in line to receiving an order, a wait time reduced by about 30 seconds from that of five years earlier. Among the company’s timesaving innovations are eliminating credit card signatures for purchases under $25, inventing a more efficient ice scoop for cold beverages and creating a new position in which an employee “floats” to where he or she is
needed most to shorten overall service time