BOMBAY DABBAWALLAH OPERATIONS (BDO)

Hasan Jamal Madiha Saleem Suniya Rizvi Umar Hafiz

Profile
Commenced operations in 1890 5000 individuals organized as a cooperative Delivers 150,00 lunchboxes (300,000 transactions) everyday Operates 25 days a month Operations limited to Mumbai Priced at Rs. 250 per lunchbox per month Earns Rs. 360mn annually Provides clean home food with minimal chance of theft Error rate: less than 1 per 2 million transactions.

SOPs
Collect, transport And distribute lunchboxes Unit of organization: Dabbawallah (DW) 1 DW serves up to 30 customers DW visits pre-assigned set of households to collect lunchboxes between 0830-0900 Collected lunchboxes brought to nearest suburban railway station 8 DWs to a team; teams responsible for operational execution Up to 8 teams go a group, groups responsible for entire operations

SOPs - Cont
Collection of lunchbox by team member from residences
Destinationwise sorting and loading oto special carts Delivery to specified locations

sorting by destination at originating station

Unloading at destination station

Collection of lunchboxes froom location

Loading on to carts for HubHub transfer

Resorting for hub-spoke transfer

Reverse logistics (empty lunchboxes from home to office

Key Success Factors

Flexible & inexpensive infrastructure: sub-urban train service runs virtually every minute Customer cooperation: customers understand the need to be punctual as members will leave without collection Appropriate network infrastructure Codification system: identifies origin, collection team member, destination, delivery team member, delivery location, destination, building identification & floor Linear topography Process capabilty: total time from collection to delivery is 3 hours capable of meeting customer expctations and specifications.

Success Factors - Cont

Redundancy: each team member is aware of other team members route Coordination: individual members are responsible for collection, transport and delivery Decentralized, three tiered structure base on a scalable model Uniform compensation