A dabbawala ("box person"), is a person in India, most commonly found in the city of Mumbai, who is employed in a unique service

industry whose primary business is collecting freshly cooked food in lunch boxes from the residences of the office workers (mostly in the suburbs), delivering it to their respective workplaces and returning the empty boxes back to the customer's residence by using various modes of transport. "Tiffin" is an old-fashioned English word for a light lunch or afternoon snack, and sometimes, by extension, for the box it is carried in. For this reason, the dabbawalas are sometimes called Tiffin Wallahs. Etymology and historical roots The word "Dabbawala" in Marathi when literally translated, means "one who carries a box". "Dabba" means a box (usually a cylindrical tin or aluminium container), while "wala" is a suffix, denoting a doer or holder of the preceding word.[1] The closest meaning of the Dabbawala in English would be the "lunch box delivery man". Though this profession seems to be simple, it is actually a highly specialized service in Mumbai which is over a century old and has become integral to the cultural life of this city. The concept of the dabbawala originated when India was under British rule. Many British people who came to the colony did not like the local food, so a service was set up to bring lunch to these people in their workplace straight from their home. Nowadays, although Indian business men are the main customers for the dabbawalas, increasingly affluent families employ them instead for lunch delivery to their school-aged children. Even though the services provided might include cooking, it primarily consists of only delivery either home-made or in that latter case, food ordered from a restaurant. The Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust This service was originated in 1880. In 1890, Mahadeo Havaji

Bachche, started a lunch delivery service with about 100 men.[2] In 1930, he informally attempted to unionize the dabbawallas. Later a charitable trust was registered in 1956 under the name of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust. The commercial arm of this trust was registered in 1968 as Mumbai Tiffin Box Supplier's Association. The present President of the association is Sopan Laxman Mare. Nowadays, the service often includes cooking of foods in addition to the delivery. Supply Chain Mumbai is a very densely populated city of millions with huge flows of traffic. Because of this, lengthy commutes to workplaces are common, with many workers traveling by train. Instead of going home for lunch or paying for a meal in a caf, many office workers have a cooked meal sent either from their home, or sometimes from a caterer who essentially cooks and delivers the meal in lunch boxes and then have the empty lunch boxes collected and re-sent the same day. This is usually done for a monthly fee. The meal is cooked in the morning and sent in lunch boxes carried by dabbawalas, who have a complex association and hierarchy across the city. A collecting dabbawala, usually on bicycle, collects dabbas either from a worker's home or from the dabba makers. As many of the carriers are illiterate, the dabbas have some sort of distinguishing mark on them, such as a colour or group of symbols. The dabbawala then takes them to a designated sorting place, where he and other collecting dabbawalas sort (and sometimes bundle) the lunch boxes into groups. The grouped boxes are put in the coaches of trains, with markings to identify the destination of the box (usually there is a designated car for the boxes). The markings include the rail station to unload the boxes and the building address where the box has to be delivered.

At each station, boxes are handed over to a local dabbawala, who delivers them. The empty boxes, after lunch, are again collected and sent back to the respective houses. Appearance and coding Although the service remains essentially low-tech, with the barefoot delivery men as the prime movers, the dabbawalas have started to embrace technology, and now allow booking for delivery through SMS.[5] An on-line poll on the web site ensures that customer feedback is given pride of place. The success of the system depends on teamwork and time management. Such is the dedication and commitment of the barely literate and barefoot delivery men (there are only a few delivery women) who form links in the extensive delivery chain, that there is no system of documentation at all. A simple colour coding system doubles as an ID system for the destination and recipient. There are no multiple elaborate layers of management either just three layers. Each dabbawala is also required to contribute a minimum capital in kind, in the form of two bicycles, a wooden crate for the tiffins, white cotton kurta-pyjamas, and the white trademark Gandhi cap (topi). The return on capital is ensured by monthly division of the earnings of each unit. Uninterrupted services The service is almost always uninterrupted, even on the days of severe weather such as monsoons. The local dabbawalas and population know each other well, and often form bonds of trust. Dabbawalas are generally well accustomed to the local areas they cater to, and use shortcuts and other low profile routes to deliver their goods on time. Occasionally, people communicate between home and work by putting messages inside the boxes; however, with the rise of instant communication such as SMS and instant messaging, this trend is vanishing. Economic analysis

Each dabbawala, regardless of role, gets paid about two to four thousand rupees per month (around 2550 or US$4080).[6] In 2002, Forbes Magazine found its reliability to be that of a six sigma standard. More than 175,000 to 200,000 lunch boxes get moved every day by an estimated 4,500 to 5,000 dabbawalas, all with an extremely small nominal fee and with utmost punctuality. According to a recent survey, they make less than one mistake in every 6 million deliveries, despite most of the delivery staff being illiterate.[7] The BBC has produced a documentary on dabbawalas, and Prince Charles, during his visit to India, visited them (he had to fit in with their schedule, since their timing was too precise to permit any flexibility). Prince Charles also invited them to his wedding with Camilla Parker Bowles in London on 9 April 2005. Owing to the tremendous publicity, some of the dabbawalas were invited to give guest lectures in some of the top business schools of India, which is very unusual. Most remarkably in the eyes of many Westerners, the success of the dabbawala trade has involved no advanced technology,[8] except for trains (and as mentioned above, SMS services for booking). The New York Times reported in 2007 that the 125-year-old dabbawala industry continues to grow at a rate of 510% per year.[4] Awards and recognition ISO 9001:2000 certified by the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand [9] JanLokpal Bill Support Dabbawala for the first time in 120 years on Aug 19, 2011 broke their tradition and went on strike for to support Anna Hazare's

campaign against corruption and voluntarily gathered at Azad Maidan with march starting from Churchgate.[10] Management Facts: 1. Time management and accuracy: Even though customers are growing, they have color coding system, which ensures that every Tiffin goes to correct person. This meal on wheel system started from British Raj at 1850. 2. Customer is King: They are not being thought in any business schools. They just know to serve the customer in best way. 3. No technical support: They have not more technical or logistic support. They perform with almost 100% accuracy. 4. Marketing and advertising: They have distributed their leaflets with Microsoft laptops in Mumbai, offering mini discount offer for food delivery. 5. Management Presentations: They have Bombay Tiffin Box Supply Charity Trust which represent the whole system. Some of them asked to give presentations in about their management skills. 7am-9am Tiffins collected from homes

9am-11am Board trains, sort boxes at intermediary stations according to delivery area four times) 11am-12pm Arrive Bombay, fan out to loading points, more sorting and loading on to handcarts, bicycles and persons (single tiffin can change hands three to

12.30pm-1pm 2pm 6pm

Deliveries Process moves into reverse Empty tiffins returned to homes

The steps mentioned above are nothing but basic steps of logistics in raw form. The biggest thing to be noted is that the whole system is manual and the average literacy of the workers is 8th grade schooling.One thing to be noted about dabbawallas is the way they make use of the resources. Local Railways networks in Mumbai is wonderful, it provides great connectivity. And this resource is exploited by dabbawallas in the best way.The tiffin boxes are collected from houses or caterers by dabbawallas and taken to railway station.The dabbawallas either walk or use bicycle.The silver bicycle of dabbawallas is famous in Mumbai. The batching of tiffin boxes according to their destination is done according to the numbers, the proper loading into luggage carriers in kind of crates and then they are sent in local trains with dabbawalla escorting the boxes. The dabbawallas follow a just in time methodology. The tiffins boxes are delivered just before lunch, neither too early neither too late. And thus the dabbawallas know that Error in Menace. They are well aware that even a small mistake is capable of setting a chain reaction and might lead to chaos in one of the routes.However improper batching can lead to complete confusion. One mistake might even put them out of business.The workers or the dabbawallas need to be reliable people, they are kept on a 6 month probation period before they can become permanent workers. Also the dabbawalla are given a day off, that is on sundays. The dabbawallas must be extremely disciplined. Any alcohol or drug consumption during duty hours attracts heavy fine . Apart from this they dabbawallas need to wear white Ghandhi Cap for

identification in the crowded stations. Not wearing a cap attracts a fine too. Thus we see that the Mumbais dabbawallas are on of the best examples of a logistics supply chain. Also the discipline among them is what makes the whole system impeccable in its operation. Like any other enterprise the dabbawallas too face major competition. Especially from the various fast food joints spread all over Mumbai. But one thing that makes them special is that no food joint can give people home made food. Thus they are ahead of the food joints in the very core of their business process. The delivery cost per month is around Rs 200-400, which is minimal. People cant expect any low prices. Its the lowest price depenind on various market forces and dabbawallas offer that price. No matter how extreme the weather, especially due to the monsoon in Mumbai, the dabbawallas are with the tiffin boxes right in time.Also the local dabbawallas know the people in sending and receiveing end personally, so there is no question of breach of trust. Some more facts: Trust registered in 1968 35-40 tiffins per dabbawalla, each of 2kg Colour code denotes owner, work address and floor New dabbawallas minimum investment: two bicycles (4,000 rupees), wooden crate (500 rupees), white cotton kurta pyjama (600 rupees) and one Gandhi topi (20 rupees) A 20-member group has 675 customers and earns 100,000 rupees a month. Average individual monthly income 5,000-6,000 rupees minus 15 rupees contribution to the trust. There are only two female dabbawalas

Six Sigma Mumbais 5000 plus Dabbawalas are world famous for their impeccable service standards. They pick up lunch boxes/ tiffin carriers from over 2,00,000 homes/ apartments, deliver them to some 80,000 destinations and again ensure their safe return to those homes/ apartments all on the same day with each lap of journey en route accomplished within the specified time limits. The people at work are not from any high academic background; rather many of them are almost illiterate. They face the same crowded pavements, on-road dense vehicular traffic and overloaded suburban trains, which normal office goers often give excuses for their late comings. Their way of doing business has, therefore, become a case study destination for every management guru and B-school. CII arranged interface for whos who of industry and business to share great management lessons from them. A Dabbawala figured among a handful few from India who got invitations to witness the marriage ceremony of Prince Charles. Sometime back, there was also an All-Dabbawala Deal Ya No Deal show in Sony Entertainment TV. They steal all attention just because their service is of Six Sigma quality. Every business concern is made of a number of interrelated processes. When inputs are made to traverse through a process, they result into certain outputs (products & services) serving either internal or external customers. A process is termed as industrial or commercial depending on whether 80% or more of the values derived are from machinery or from human activity, respectively. No matter how perfect a process is, no product/ service will come conforming to exact targeted specifications. It would always vary. However, when it varies within certain Lower Specification Limit (LSL) and Upper Specification Limit (USL) as acceptable/ agreed to

or specified by the customers, then it is considered to be defect free or quality product/ service. Further, every opportunity of delivering a product/ service is also wrought with an opportunity for the occurrence of defect. When the Defects Per Million Opportunity (DPMO) doesnt exceed 3.4, the process is said to have met Six Sigma level. And Mumbai Dabbawalas DPMO is less than 3.4 or precisely, it is 2! Sigma (r) denotes Standard deviation a statistical measure of dispersion/ variance. It is the positive square root of the arithmetic mean of the squares of deviations of given observations from their arithmetic mean. Say, it is a midsummer and your organisation wants to hold a three-hour business plan meet of your 100 sales persons. You look for a conference hall with right facilities and ambience, especially the room temperature which should be maintained throughout at 22!10 C. And two hotels in the city also promised the same. When measured at every half an-hour interval in the one where you held your meet, it read as 18, 28, 30, 24, 20 and 18; the arithmetic mean value and r being 23 and 4.7, respectively. Whereas, had you gone to the other hotel, other things remaining same, the observed values of the room temperature would have been say, 23, 22, 24, 22, 23 & 24. Although the mean was the same 23, the r being less at 0.8, the service of the second hotel was more qualitative and would have given you more satisfaction. Hence the saying, Company may celebrate mean but customers are bothered by the variance. However, its process was still not conforming to Six Sigma level. With two observed values out of six not meeting the customer expectations (22!10 C), the DPMO worked out to 333,333.33 (i.e., 2/6 multiplied by 1,000,000), which was hugely far from the required 3.4!

Benefits of higher Sigma level*

Sigma Level 2 applicable 3 of sales 4 sales 5 sales 6

DPMO 308,537 66,807 6,210 (Industry Average) 233 3.4 (World class)

Cost of quality Not 25-40% 15-25% of 5-15% of < 1% of sales

*Source: SIX SIGMA - The Breakthrough Management Strategy by Mikel Harry & R Schroeder. The figures in third column indicate that if, for example, you purchase a product at Rs.10,000/- from a company operating at 4 Sigma Level, you are being made to pay about Rs.1500-2500/(i.e., 15-25% of sale price) towards the cost of inefficient processes deployed by the company to manufacture the item. Putting it in other way, the company concerned can reduce the price of the product by Rs.1500-2500/- if it fixes its faulty processes or improves/ recreates the processes. This measure would also help the company to increase its market share tremendously. Past definition of Quality Conformance to standards irrespective of how they were met. Lot many hidden costs used to get factored into the cost of

the product/ service. High quality could be only at a high cost.

Accordingly, it was difficult to gain more market share since price could not be reduced without hitting the bottomline. Present definition of Quality Conformance to standards by continuous recreation of internal processes. This eliminates the need to observe after production quality control and cost of rework associated, repair/ replacement of defective parts/ products, after sales warranty service, etc. This ultimately reduces cost. The slogan now is Being better is cheaper. In other words, a quality product or service need not necessarily be a costly one. Why China made toffees, instant foods, stationery articles, aesthetic and art/ feng shui objects, electronic toys, gift, decorative, utility items, etc., have flooded the world market? Are we all purchasing them just because they are cheap? Our Diwali has become whose Diwali anyway? When do we wake up to the reality? Says W Edwards Deming; Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure to meet customer expectations are related to deficiencies in systems and processes ... rather than the employee. The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individuals to do better. I have a Maruti 800 of 1992 make. First time when I had a punctured tyre, I went to a wayside repair shop. A boy fixed it. After a few months, I observed that the tread on the said tyre was getting unevenly worn off. I took the car to a wheel alignment shop. The man on the job reset a nut that was wrongly set with its groove-side out. To put an end to this sort of problem for good, subsequent models came with the flat side of this category of nuts permanently blocked.

So, companies be alert! If you wish to achieve the efficiency of Mumbais Dabbawalas, Dont fix your employees for any deficiency in their performance standards in meeting customer expectations, rather take their help to identify the faults in your systems and procedures and fix them. Many movies have been made by various filmmakers showing the taste of different communities and how dabbawallas deliver home made lunch.In 1998, two Dutch filmmakers, Jascha De Wilde and Chris Relleke made a documentary called Dabbawallahs, Mumbais unique lunch service. In July 2001, The Christian Science Monitor, an international newspaper published from Boston, Mass., USA, covered the Dabbawalas in an article called Fastest Food: Its Big Mac vs. Bombays 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. The management perspective Dabbawallas are a prime example of management guru Michael Porter's Five Forces Theory at work. According to Manav Malik, a first year student of NITIE, "Porter's theories, which are the basis for classical management principles, define the scope and nature of competition a company faces to attain leadership. Surprisingly, the dabbawalas are following these very principles in spite of their ignorance of the same."

These are as follows: 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 suppliers. 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. So, will these people next target the other metros in India? Only time will tell. What we learnt ~ "As management students, there was a lot that we learnt from this lecture," says Karthik A J, a first year management student at NITIE. " The belief that technology is indispensable to solve complex problems was shattered. FMCGs and other industries can learn a lot from the simple supply chain logistics and efficient reverse logistics (transfer of empty lunch boxes to the source location)," he adds. ~ The concept of multi-level coding (colour coding on the lunch boxes for identification) and reverse logistics can be implemented in industries as diverse as soft drinks (where logistics becomes an important aspect, transporting the filled bottles to retailers and

collecting empty bottles back to the plants), pharmaceuticals and other FMCG areas. For example, can the bar coding mechanism (a computerised format) which is prevalent and expensive, be simplified with just colour/ number coding? In small and medium scale organisations where bar coding systems would require a lot of resources, these systems can prove to be very efficient and cost effective. Moreover, the dependence on technology could be drastically reduced. The learnings for a working executive are enormous too. Managers and executives alike spend a lot of their valuable time learning various concepts in people and time management. Newer mechanisms like Customer Relationship Management, etc, have been developed to assist executives in the same. But, in the midst of implementing technology and IT, basic principles in people management, sustainable relationship development and customer satisfaction have lost their meaning. Our friendly dabbawallas are a perfect example of an important principle of both business and management -- the thirst to serve customers in a simple yet effective fashion without falling into the technology trap. I think this is an aspect which needs to be relearnt and implemented in any organisation today. The most enduring lesson that we learnt was to put the customer ahead of everything else. It is said that when Prince Charles expressed a desire to meet them during his visit in 2003, the dabbawallas requested him to schedule the meeting such that it did not interfere with their mid-day delivery timings.