REPORT 1- THE GUEST LECTURE OF MUMBAI

DABBAWALA

INTRODUCTION

Few days back our institution had the privilege of hosting a guest lecture by
Mumba dabbawala and the speaker who was presenting from the side of
Mumbai dabbawala was Ritesh Andre. The first question in the guest lecture he
asked was what you understand by mumbai dabbawala and then he answered by
saying that the name has three meaning behind which were, the first one
Mumbai the city, second one dabba means a tiffin box and the third one wala
which means a person delivering the tiffin box. Lunchboxes have to reach the
client by 13:00 every day and it can take up to three hours to deliver them. The
whole city can be affected by late deliveries, says sangle.

They also spoke about the six sigma which means that dabbawala makes fewer
than 3.4 mistakes per million transactions. They also spoke that the dabbawala
gives roughly 2 lakhs tiffin a day which means that if you that according to six
sigma then there are only 400 tiffins getting delayed or missed in a year which
is an extraordinary thing to pull off.Mumbai dabbawala provides food in tiffins
specifically homemade food to customers all over Mumbai through distinct
distribution channels. These distributive channels are usually trains, bicycles, or
sometimes they walk on foot. The dress code of these Six Sigma workers
consists of a white Gandhi topi.And the people who are working as dabbawalas
are mostly undereducated or uneducated but still they have a brotherhood
feeling for each other and that is the reason by their community as became so
strong over the years.

Dabbawala, as this paper would show has VC the most efficient supply chains
in the world with no investment in technology, no negative effect to the
environment and one of the most promising organisations with a six sigma
certification awarded in recognition of 99.997% accuracy rate of deliveries.

Dabbawala is a business with approximately 5000 employees who

are not actually employees but business partners of the Charitable Trust
NMTBSA (mentioned below), with their main aim is to make sure that their
customers get to eat healthy food made by someone who understands their taste
and prepares the food as hygienically as possible.The organisation preaches a
spiritual and orthodox based practices among its employees, proven by their use
of an older method of logistics
HISTORY

The Mumbai are a group of Lunchbox delivery men in Mumbai, India known
for their highly efficient and nearly error free lunchbox delivery service.This
service now has been taken place over then a century now.

During the 1890s the Mumbai dabbawala was formed as individual independent
entrepreneurs. It was only during the late 19th century that they were
established as cooperatives. The birth of this idea was however by a man named
Mahadev Haji Bache. In 1885, a banker in Mumbai hired a man to pick up and
return his lunchbox from his residence to his place of work and an empty
lunchbox from his residence at his place of work. Due to this system, Mahadev
Haji Bache saw a golden opportunity to turn this idea into the successful
business. He was also the original delivery man and so the first dabbawala. In
1890, a few farmers which were around 35 in strength gathered together to form
the first team. The farmers lived near Pune and were from Bache’s village.

What sets them apart is their remarkable accuracy. Despite Mumbais chaotic
traffic and the enormous volume of deliveries from which they deliver hundreds
and thousands in a day, and make a very few mistakes, with an error rate
estimated to be low as one in 16 million deliveries.

Since the recruitment is referral based, a lot of the people working as

dabbawalas are descendants of tribal warriors who fought in battle with Shivaji.
The President of Mumbai Dabbawala, Raghunath Medge, believed in the
philosophy that their strength comes from Shivaji and their devotion remains to
God. He also talks about how his ancestors fought in the way with Shivaji’s

army and today they fight together against time. The Dabbawala was
inaugurated due to the need of a Parsi banker who desired homemade food on a
regular basis from home, and he hired the first Dabbawala ever”. With this
desire evolved a need of many other Indians who liked the idea and demanded
the same service. In 1990, ‘Mahadeo Havaji Bachche’, perceived this need at
the right time created what we today call the “Mumbai Dabbawala”. The
Mumbai Dabbawala is an organization, in which approximately 85% of the
employees are illiterate. The concept of the Dabbawala evolved 125 years ago
was when the first time a coding system was designed to match the deliveries to
the final destination. The coding system, is one of
the only few coding systems in the world that did not need to evolve too much
with the changing demand patterns of the business. The Dabbawala’s not only
deliver the homemade food in the morning from the customer’s house to their
office, but they also deliver empty tiffin’s back from the customer’s office to
their home.
LECTURE OVERVIEW

1) Organisation Structure: One dabbawala is responsible for around

15-20 deliveries. It was in 1983 that Mumbai Dabbawala established
an owner-partner system. This was based on the concept of a profit-
sharing model and wasn’t on the basis of a salary system. One area
consists of 25 members each, 2-3 backups, and around 1 supervisor
who is also known as the muqaddam. Together as a group, they
manage their finances, customers, and operational activities. The
members working are in the age group of 18-65 years of age. While
mainstream corporates in the world look for younger people for the
purpose of employment and recruitment, Mumbai dabbawala has no
such requirement. Unlike corporates, Mumbai dabbawala also has no
formal resignation process.

These Muqaddams, later on, stand in elections for 2 different

committees. These company’s hold monthly meetings to discuss the
functioning of the organisation.

There are around 5000 employees including 635 supervisors. The

charitable trust in 1954. Subhash Talekar is President Mumbai
dabbawala association. Mr. Talekar is also a founder of roti bank and
kapda bank in Mumbai. Roti Bank collects all the leftover food from
small functions, big parties, and wedding ceremonies and distributes it
to the slum area and poor people.Dabbawala provide delivery in 3
hours all over Mumbai. Using this concept Dabbawalas have started a
new app ‘Paper and Parcels’ by using the new technologies to deliver
that day itself.
2) Supply chain Process map: Dabbawala’s have a very unique Supply
Chain; their supply chain starts from the Customer’s house where the food is
cooked by their wife or their mother or their cook. “A Dabbawala, starts his day
at 8:30 am, spending approximately an hour A collecting Dabba’s (tiffin’s) from
the customer’s houses and takes them to the local railway station where all the
Dabbawala’s from that locality meet and sort tiffin’s
according to the various destination areas. These tiffin’s are then distributed to
the Dabbawala’s located in the area where the delivery has to take place, this
process takes approximately 2 hours and all Dabbawala’s start delivering
Dabba’s to the customer’s offices who can then eat lunch from home(Patel &
Vedula, 2006)”.

The delivery process takes approximately an hour after which the Dabbawala’s
themselves have lunch in half an hour and then roll out for collection of empty
tiffin boxes from the customer’s offices and report to the local railway station.
Once they are back to the station where they originally had picked up the
Dabba, they will start returning the tiffin’s to the customer’s house. This
process is explained in section 12 i.e. Supply Chain Process Map.
According to Vineet Nayar, the CEO of HCL Technologies one of the fastest
growing IT Companies in the world set a new philosophy in Management
writing a book issued by Harvard Business Press in June 2010 says “Employees
should be first and Customers should be second for a company, which has made
HCL Technologies the fastest growing and profitable Information Technology
companies globally”.

This philosophy can be seen to an extent in the Mumbai’s Dabbawala’s

organization. The Dabbawala’s have a very strong community and they are like
family to each other mainly because most of the people belong to the same
village. As soon as there is a
requirement of a new Dabbawala in the organization, the Dabbawala in the
locality with the requirement of a new recruit calls one of his family members to
join the organization. This way the wisdom is passed from one Dabbawala to
another in a way without any political office environments. A lot of the big
organizations of the world invest a lot in Training and Development. However
for the Dabbawala’s this cost is minimal. The only Training and Development
costs for the Dabbawala’s is the computer labs created for their employees. One
of key reasons of the success of the organisation is that there employees are
friendly with each other and treat them as part of their family.
3)Dabbawalas involvement :The dabbawalas involvement are:

● Trust and association is only controlling authority of dabbawalas group.

Dabbawalas work in teams and have a strong sense of trust among
themselves with their customers. They believe in the integrity of their
service and maintain a low error rate.
● Dabbawala elect their own trustee by holding election to regulate
dabbawalas after every 5 years.
● Dabbawalas have the power of decision making during an emergency.

● All financial decisions can not finalize without Getting suggestions of the
dabbawalas.
● Dabbawalas can suggest ideas to the trustees if they need a big change in

the system.
6 organization is that there employees are friendly with each other and treat
each other as a part of their own family.
4)Beliefs of Dabbawalas: The Beliefs of Dabbawalas are:
● Unity is power

● Work is worship

● Serving people is serving god

● Customer is god

● Anandan is Mahadan

● Time is Money
5)Service Process structure: The service process structure is the smart move
which is the coding system.

1)The coding system: The Mumbai’s Dabbawala’s have a very unique coding
system in place. But this is justifiable given the unique nature of their
business. The Dabbawala’s Coding System is identified by a lot of
researchers, however shows in the following slide how the coding system has

evolved in the past 125 years. The latest coding system unlike any other supply
chain is one of the most innovative and is one of a kind. The
Mumbai’s Dabbawala’s don’t need any investment in technology, they don ’t
need SAP or Oracle to align their supply chain and share information. All they
need is a few colored markers or chalks to share all the information that can
make the supply chain a success. As we can see from the slide above the code
“E” is the name of the street where the Dabbawala in the residential area will
collect the tiffin in the morning.
“VLP” represents the closest station to the residential area 13 of the customer.
“3” represents the station that is the closest to the customer’s office. “E” written
in green colour represents the railway line on which the destination station stop
comes. So “E.G.” as mentioned in the slide indicates that Dabbawala has to get
this Dabba on the Railway line which goes to Church gate (Last station of the
Western Line). “Ex” represents the name of the building where the customer’s
office is located. “12” represents the floor within the building of the customer’s
office. This might seem like a lot of information; however, each Dabbawala
when
newly recruited is trained for 6 months to master the railway network and his
area due to which he would never make any mistakes like the senior
Dabbawala’s.

6) Major Features of supply chain:

 ● Zero % Fuel

● Use of local trains for long distance

● Zero % plastic

● Zero % paper

● Zero % modern technology

● Zero % Investment

● 100% Customer Satisfaction

7)Facts about dabbawalas:

● Error Rate is 1 in 6 million transactions

● Better then six sigma performance (99.999997%)

● ‘No strike’ record as each one a share holder

● ‘No resignation’ in 128 years

● No age limit for work ( 85 years old dabbawala still working)

● No resources

8)Dabbawala Recruitment Process

For the recruitment process of dabbawalas they give a 5 days training and
mostly focus on the dedication level of the dabbawalas.Now I will tell you the
day to day process for the recruitment process of Mumbai dabbawala:

● Day 1: Training About the system

● Day 2: Knowledge about code and sully chain

● Day 3: Customer relationship management

● Day 4: Test of time management level by flatting the bicycle tire

 ● Day 5: Test of dedication level overload

Its important to note that the Mumbai dabbawalas have a strong sense of
community and loyalty to their organization, which plays a significant role in
their recruitment and training process.

Key Learnings

1)Teamwork- Dabbawalas work together as a tight-knit team, highlighting the

significance of teamwork, coordination, and trust among members

2)Precision and Accuracy- They demonstrate an incredible level of precision in

delivering the lunchboxes to the right recipients with minimal errors.

3) Be a support system to other dabbawalas-There is nothing as competing

against each other in the dabbawalas.No one has a designation, everyone is the
boss. There are not bound by anything, as a result of which they give the best
results for themselves and their co workers.

4) Leave awful customers- They believe that one client should not make
thousands suffer. In case a Mumbai homemaker is late with the dabba for more
than one week, they are careful about not taking on that client again.

5) Strong work ethic- Dabbawalas exhibit dedication and discipline, adhering to

their schedule even in challenging conditions.

6) Continuous Improvement- Despite their success, the dabbawalas constantly

seek ways to improve their system and adapt to changing circumstances.

7) A smile can make the food even more tastier- Food served with love has a
different taste. Even if you are not hungry and someone with a loving smile asks
you to eat something, you cannot resist having it. In the same way, the
dabbawalas, despite working so hard in the scorching sun, always serve you
with a prominent smile to make your meal more delicious.

8) Time management- Dabbawalas believe that since they can’t control the train
schedules, they have to follow strict discipline to make timely deliveries. A
dabbawala works for eight-to-nine hours a day, which includes a three-hour
period of so-called “war time” in the morning. This is because they have to
adhere to the lunch timings of the offices of their clients and make timely
deliveries no matter what happens. During their hectic nine-hour workday,
dabbawalas only get 20 minutes to eat their lunches while their clients finish
their meals.
.

PERSONAL REFLECTION

1)From Mumbai dabbawala I learnt that most of the time in their delivery
process they were very efficient and precise with having minimal errors during
this process and try to reduce those mistakes also which are happening.

2)The Mumbai dabbawala work as a one unit, it means that they showcase a
very sense of teamwork and they always try to coordinate with the other
dabbawalas. From this you learn that you should such kind of teamwork in your
work which makes you do less errors and better result.

3)The most important thing I have learnt from Mumbai dabbawala is that ‘Time
management’ they do which has helped them achieving a greater success.
Proper time management also showcase that you are very punctual in your life
and you don’t take things for granted.

4)From them you also learn that you should your Surroundings nicely as the
city of Mumbai they knew it very well as the use of the local trains for making
the delivery cheap and making it very affordable and they also know that the
customer likes food which is like home cooked types, so knowing your
customers or the environment will help you a lot.

5)Mumbai dabbawala also had a very positive social impact also as in terms of
employment also they had workers of age group from 18 to 65 years of age.
And also their work had zero percent of fuel usage as their delivery was done
only through local trains and bicycles. And they also tried in not wasting any of
the food.

6)And also from them you also learn that you don’t require a specific skill or be
a educated as more then 30% of their employees are uneducated but still they do
their job with perfection as they have the passion and works hard in
understanding the system like the colour coding system, and they do their best
in delivering the tiffin boxes to their customers.

7) From the Mumbai dabbawala you can also strong and experienced leadership
as there are small groups divided into small distribution sectors and there is a
person called mukadam(the group leader). The person who has more experience
in the delivery job gets the role of the mukadam.There is a group of 14 to 15
members which you have guide and there are many employees also which
requires the guidance in the job.

LECTURE DISCUSSION

During the time of the session there were many facts and figures discussed.And
there were many students who were taking interest in asking out questions to
the spokesperson.There was also a point were the student asked why the
Mahatma Gandhij Ji cap is important to wear during the time of delivery?, so
the spokesperson answered by saying that it is very important in their
organisation as it wore out of respect and also holds a lot of value for them.
And if they see you not wearing that topi then there is a fine of 1000Rs.

They also spoke of their organisational structure, working style and delivery
systems, for which the organisation has received accolades from many quarters,
including from Prince Charles. They also discussed how their organisation had
become a subject of study in top B-schools in India and abroad, and recently
secured Six-Sigma certification.More then the presentation it was their down to
earth attitude and humour which made us so interested in this topic.

The Dabbawala’s is by far a Logistics Organization with one of the most

efficient and successful supply chains in the world. The Charitable trust has
received a lot of guests and certifications in appreciation of their immense time
management skills and recognition of their service levels. The trust has been
awarded a six sigma certificate in recognition of making just 1 mistake in 16
million deliveries. The organization recruits Dabbawala’s from a limited and a
fixed number of villages from families of the existing partners/employees of the
organization.
CONCLUSION

The Mumbai Dabbawala’s is a part of the charitable organization NMTBSA,

who has over 5000 partners. The Dabbawala’s are not actually employees
working for NMTBSA but they are partners of the charitable trust and have
only one ultimate goal that the customers get to eat hot home-cooked food and
are healthy. The Dabbawala’s is a tiffin (Dabba) delivering community which
provides high levels of delivery services at very minute costs to the customers.
The Dabbawala’s is by far a Logistics Organization with one of the most
efficient and successful supply chains in the world. The Charitable trust has
received a lot of guests and certifications in appreciation of their immense time
management skills and recognition of their service
levels. The trust has been awarded a six sigma certificate in recognition of
making just 1 mistake in 16 million deliveries.

The organization recruits Dabbawala’s from a limited and a fixed number of

villages from families of the existing partners/employees of the organization.
Mumbai Dabbawala thus shows the importance of a well defined supply chain
system and the importance of communication between not only the executives
and the middlemen but also between the people who work on the field daily. In
a world that prioritizes technology and educational qualification over everything
and takes these two factors as the prerequisites for building a successful
business, Mumbai Dabbawala effectively proves them wrong. Working with no
technology of any form and using a well-defined coding system in order to
maintain records is one of the things that they are applauded for. Also working
with men from almost all age groups of the working population and men who
are undereducated and uneducated is also their specialty and contributes heavily
to eradicating unemployment in their community.

Their attitude toward competitive collaboration is equally unusual, particularly

in India. Their excellent sense of deep commitment, sense of work ethic, and
unparalleled time management system remain to be the best in place.