Millions in Mumbai commute everyday to earn a living.

Banks, colleges, hospitals, government

offices, private offices, factories and ports are all spread across different parts of the city. In a
country where hot and freshly cooked home food is the most preferred for consumption,
carrying of lunch boxes is a big burden for the working populace. However, this problem is
unheard of in this metro city thanks to the presence of the 100 year old organization of
Dabbawalas.

The Dabbawala community has about 5000 people working with them. These Dabbawalas
deliver lunch boxes for about 2 lakh people at their work places on time. The work doesnt end
here. They also carry the empty lunch boxes back to the homes of the customers. The
unbelievable part is they make only one mistake in sixteen million transactions and have been
consistently good at it for all the time of their operations. This credibility earned them a six sigma
designation by the Forbes magazine and ISO 9001 accreditation. The three main reasons for
their success are as follows.
1. Supply Chain Management
Surprisingly there is no use of Information systems or technology for their Supply chain side. A
rigorous level of practice over the years has led to the unwritten steps to follow for accurate
supply chain management and time precision. There are about 40000 transactions (delivery and
return) of lunch boxes taking place daily. The figure below shows their Supply chain model.

Dabbawalas use cycles or go by foot to every household. The waiting time to collect a lunch
box is maximum 2 minutes

Every Dabbawala has to assemble at his/her reported collection point at sharp 9. 30 am

From these collection points they assemble at the nearest railway station which is the
Aggregation point

The next mode of transport is the trains where the carriers containing lunch boxes are
transported to the destination railway stations

From every Destination station the dabbas are carried over carts, cycles and carriers to the
destination zones which are given a specific number

From these zones, the lunch boxes are carried to the offices or workplaces which reach by
lunchtime

From here the reverse process of delivering the empty lunch boxes back to homes starts

All through the above process, there is no slack at any point of time

Traffic Jams, pedestrians, delays in train and signals do not stop the functioning. The
trademark white cap wore by these Dabbawalas are known to everyone including the police
who dont interfere in their process

2. Coding System

Coding System is meticulously followed in order to avoid any mistakes involving interchange of
lunch boxes, that is, wrong Tiffin box reaching the customer.
As given in the above Diagram, the Coding system can be explained as follows:

BVI: Borivali, a suburb in Mumbai. This denotes the residential station

9 RC 14: Code for Dabbawalas at destination. This user code is different for each customer

RC: Raheja Chambers, name of a building or office

14: Floor Number

E: Code for Dabbawala at Destination station. For example, E is a code for Nariman Point,
Churchgate

Jain: Name/Surname of the customer

3. Employees
All the employees or Dabbawalas are the stakeholders in this organization. This is the source of
their motivation. Most of the employees are illiterate and rest is school dropouts. However they
are literate enough to understand the codes and comprehend which lunch box belongs where.
They are given basic idea about writing the alphabets and numbers on the boxes on joining the
organization. Every Dabbawala takes about 3 hours for completing his assignment and has to
cover 60-70 km on foot, carts, cycles and carriers combined. Alcohol consumption is strictly
avoided during work hours. The employees monthly salary is about Rs.6000 per month.
Key Features of the Dabbawalas organization:

Organization Turnover is about Thirty Six Crores annually

Uninterrupted and on time service delivered even in occasions of bad weather and
transportation/traffic problems

Dabbawalas are well used to the local areas where they are functioning and make use of
short cuts to save time

No error inspite of lunch boxes changing hands six times

During the working hours, they do not take a break or rest and thus no slack is present in
the system

They do not use vehicles which require fuel which makes them 0% Fuel reliant

They do not use any modern technology for carrying out the logistics

There are no disputes between the employees and no presence of any union

Unique organization with Six Sigma designation and 99.99% rate of performance

Cost of Service per lunch box = Rs. 450 per month and is standard price for all

Customer Satisfaction accounts 100% with utmost trust

Conclusion:
The Dabbawalas organization is a standout example of efficient Logistics and Supply Chain
Management. Corporates and students should make note of their functioning in order to
understand their unique structure and process. Today the Dabbawalas have welcomed the use
of internet technology only for increasing their customer base and nothing more. Many fast food
chains and hotels in the city will always be competing with the Dabbawalas but their hope of
failure of Dabbawalas system may never materialize.

http://www.mbaskool.com/business-articles/operations/2891-dabbawalas-uniquesupply-chain-model.html

Before cutting to the management mantras, let's understand a few facts about our
dabbawallas. The origin of the Dabbawalas' lunch delivery service dates back to the
1890s during the British raj. At that time, people from various communities migrated to
Mumbai for work. As there were no canteens or fast food centers then, if working people
did not bring their lunch from home, they had to go hungry and invariably, lunch would
not be ready when they left home for work. Besides, different communities had different
tastes and preferences which could only be satisfied by a home-cooked meal.
Recognizing the need, Mahadeo Havaji Bacche (Mahadeo), a migrant from North
Maharashtra, started the lunch delivery service. For his enterprise, Mahadeo recruited
youth from the villages neighboring Mumbai, who were involved in agricultural work.
They were willing to come as the income they got from agriculture was not enough to
support their large families, and they had no education or skills to get work in the city.

The service started with about 100 Dabbawalas and cost the client Rs.2 a month.
Gradually, the number of Dabbawalas increased and the service continued even though
the founder was no more.
Their mission is to serve their customers -- who are mainly office goers -- by delivering
their lunch boxes at their doorstep on time. They have 5,000 people on their payroll to
ensure the prompt delivery of lunchboxes within Mumbai; these 'delivery boys' travel by
local trains and use bicycles or walk to reach every nook and corner of Mumbai. The
lunch boxes are delivered exactly at 12.30 pm. Later, the empty boxes are collected and
taken back to the homes, catering services or hotels before 5 pm. In fact, the next time
you forget to strap on your watch before leaving for office, don't be surprised to find it in
the lunchbox container brought by the dabbawalla from your home! On an average,
every tiffin box changes hands four times and travels 60-70 kilometres in its journey to
reach its eventual destination. Each box is differentiated and sorted along the route on
the basis of markings on the lid, which give an indication of the source as well as the
destination address.
How the dabba is delivered

The first dabbawalla picks up the tiffin from home and takes it to the nearest
railway station.

The second dabbawalla sorts out the dabbas at the railway station according to
destination and puts them in the luggage carriage.

The third one travels with the dabbas to the railway stations nearest to the
destinations.

The fourth one picks up dabbas from the railway station and drops them of at the
offices. The process is reversed in the evenings.

Mumbai has an estimated 5,000 tiffin carriers -dabbawallas (literal translation- the cancarriers) delivering about 175,000 lunch boxes every day. The business is centiry old and
evolved over a period of time - and the efficiency of the process have earned the
dabbawallas a six-sigma rating from Forbes magazine.
The Six Sigma quality certification was established by the International Quality
Federation in 1986, to judge the quality standards of an organisation. According to an
article published in Forbes magazine in 1998, one mistake for every eight million
deliveries constitutes Six Sigma quality standards. The Six-sigma rating means that they
have a 99.99 % efficiency in delivering the lunch-boxes to the right people. That put
them on the list of Six Sigma rated companies, along with multinationals like Motorola
and GE. Achieving this rating was no mean feat, considering that the Dabbawalas did not
use any technology or paperwork, and that most of them were illiterate or semiliterate.
Apart from Forbes, the Dabbawalas have aroused the interest of many other
international organizations, media and academia.
MUMBAI DABBAWALLA
In 1998, two Dutch filmmakers, Jascha De Wilde and Chris Relleke made a documentary
called 'Dabbawallahs, Mumbai's unique lunch service'. The film focussed on how the
tradition of eating home-cooked meals, and a business based on that, could survive in a
cosmopolitan city like Mumbai. In July 2001, The Christian Science Monitor, an
international newspaper published from Boston, Mass., USA, covered the Dabbawalas in
an article called 'Fastest Food: It's Big Mac vs. Bombay's dabbawallahs' . In 2002,

Jonathan Harley, a reporter, did a story on the Dabbawalas with the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). In 2003, BBC also aired a program on the Dabbawalas,
which was part of a series on unique businesses of the world. In 2003, Paul S. Goodman
and Denise Rousseau, both faculty at the Graduate School of Industrial Administration of
Carnegie Mellon University, made their first full-length documentary called 'The
Dabbawallas'.
Back home, the Dabbawalas were invited to speak at Confederation of Indian Industry
(CII) meets and at leading Indian business schools such as IIM, Bangalore and Lucknow.
Secretary of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust Gangaram Talekar and
M Medge, a tiffin carrier contractor both essentially dabbawallas have been
delivering lectures at premier institutes like the IIMs, CII conferences, Symbiosis
institutes, WTC, for the last six years. Their indigenously developed tracking system has
been studied by management institutes and gurus, and Prince Charles, when he came to
Mumbai in 2003, met them and had a chat with them. So far, only two people in
Mumbai, India's financial capital have been invited for the wedding of Prince Charles and
Camilla Parker Bowles. And they are not Mumbai's gliteratti - they are the dabbawallas tiffin carriers - who are in the business of reaching home-cooked lunches to Mumbai's
working millions.
Dabbawala methodology

"Error is horror," said Talekar while explaining the operational motto. In the event
of a dabbawalla meeting with an accident en route, alternative arrangements are
made to deliver the lunch boxes. For example, in a group of 30 dabbawallas
catering to an area, five people act as redundant members; it is these members
who take on the responsibility of delivering the dabbas in case of any untoward
happenings.

The dabbawallas must be extremely disciplined. Consuming alcohol while on duty

attracts a fine of Rs 1,000. Unwarranted absenteeism is not tolerated and is
treated with a similar fine.

Every dabbawalla gets a weekly off, usually on Sunday.

The Gandhi cap serves as a potent symbol of identification in the crowded railway
stations. Not wearing the cap attracts a fine of Rs 25. In fact, Richard Branson,
the maverick businessman who is never shy to promote himself and the Virgin
brand, donned a Gandhi topi and dhoti (the dabbawallas' signature dress code),
during the launch of Virgin's inaugural flights to Mumbai.

There are no specific selection criteria like age, sex or religion; however, I have
never seen a female dabbawalla. The antecedents of the candidates are
thoroughly verified and a new employee is taken into the fold for a six-month
probation. After that period, the employment is regularised with a salary of Rs
5,000 a month.

Analysed from the Michael Porter's Five Forces Model

i. Threat of new entrants:
According to Porter, the threat new entrants is dangerous to any organisation as it can
take away the market share the organisation enjoys. Started in 1880, the experience
curve of the 125-year-old dabbawalla service serves as a huge entry barrier for potential

competitors. Besides, it would be difficult to replicate this supply chain network that uses
Mumbai's jam-packed local trains as its backbone.
ii. Current competition:
Porter's five forces theory states that strategy is determined by a unique combination of
activities that deliver a different value proposition than competitors or the same value
proposition in a better way.The dabbawallas do face competition from fast food joints as
well as office canteens. However, since neither of these serve home food, the
dabbawallas' core offering remains unchallenged. They have also tied up with many
catering services and hotels to cater to the vast number of office goers.
iii. Bargaining power of buyers:
The delivery rates of the dabbawallas are so nominal (about Rs 300 per month) that one
simply wouldn't bargain any further. Also, their current monopoly negates any scope of
bargaining on the part of their customers. Thus, we encounter a perfect win-win
combination for the customers as well as the dabbawallas.
iv. Bargaining power of sellers:
The dabbawallas use minimum infrastructure and practically no technology, hence they
are not dependent on s
uppliers. Since they are a service-oriented organisation, they are not dependent on
sellers to buy their product. Hence, sellers do not assume any prominence as would be
the case in a product-oriented company. The strategy map framework in Porter's theory
allows companies to identify and link together the critical internal processes and human,
information and organisation capital that deliver the value proposition differently or
better. Human capital is the greatest driving force in the dabbawalla community; as a
result, they are not dependent on suppliers or technology, thus negating the seller's
power in the equation.
v. Threat of a new substitute product or service:
As substitutes to home cooked food are not seen as a viable alternative in the Indian
scenario, the threat to the dabbawalla service is not an issue at least in the foreseeable
future. This gives them a leeway to probably expand their already existing network into
newer cities as demand increases in these places as well.
Here is a clutch of statistics that reveals the task that the dabbawallas are up
to: History
: Started in 1880
Average Literacy Rate : 8th Grade Schooling
Average Area Coverage : 60 Km per Tiffin Box
Employee Strength
: 5000
Number of Tiffins
: 2,00,000 Tiffin Boxes,
i.e., 4,00,000 transactions every day
Time Taken
: 3 hours (9 am - 12 pm delivery of carriers,
2 pm - 5 pm collection of empty carriers)
Cost of Service
: Rs. 200/- - Rs. 300/- per month
Turnover
: Rs. 50 crore per month approximately

http://www.indianmba.com/Faculty_Column/FC592/fc592.html