Comment by calmbonsai

The specific "transparency" I was commenting on was mid-drink preparation which can not be handed-off in any sort of scalable automated fashion (and that's OK).

Having worked a warehouse job as a teen and done data science consulting for a global restaurant chain, I'm certain Starbucks has done time*motion studies and concluded that the system is "good enough" given the huge variety of floor-plans and other physical plant limitations they need to operate in.

It's also worth pointing out that they recently greatly simplified their menu to improve service speed variance, throughput, and (in theory) quality.

There are absolutely tons of unavoidable wait-states (espresso group-heads, drip coffee filter changes, etc.) in the system that can't be overcome with automation at any sort of economic scale (and that's also OK).

Starbucks once tried replacing some of that with higher-margin single-serving automation (remember the Clover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Equipment_Company and it totally failed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfNoNTjcRbE ).