Gunda Gayathri

1901050
PGDM - A

CASE STUDY: TRAVELLING LUNCH BOXES

The dabbawalas of Mumbai are the people who facilitate the delivery of home–
made food from their homes to offices of the employees (customers). They do so in
the aluminium containers, which serve the dual purpose of keeping the food warm
as well as to keep it intact. They have been around since almost 1890, but
registered themselves as a trust in 1967. More than 175000-200000 lunch boxes
are delivered everyday by almost 4500-5000 dabbawalas, and with a precision that
have earned them the tag of six sigma rating which is upgraded to eight sigma
recently. These dabbawalas are employed by almost 800 supervisors. They have
their name in Guinness World Record as holder of best time management. The
case examines the Dabbawalas way of working, by describing the delivery process.
It also explains their unique coding process to identify the lunchboxes.

SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
Working with the team is the strength of dabbawala.They deliver Tiffin boxes
before 12 pm at the customer's office. Their duty starts from morning 8 am. Same
time there is always lots of rush at railway station, & traffic on the road, in such
kind of critical situation they able to deliver lunch boxes on time. They got Six
Sigma because of their Time management & no. defects in deliveries.100%
customer satisfaction is the success of their system.they achieved this level because
of maintaining good relationship with customers.

Weakness:
The dabbawalas having limited access to education,limits the diversification of the
members to other business or jobs which means that the scope of them having a
different career is very low.The limited fund flow for the association, limits its
governing body to implement welfare schemes for the workers.
Opportunities:
Tie up with caterers to serve variety of meals i.e. Diet food, Chinese food , food for
fasting will improve the business of dabbawalas.The opportunity of expansion of
service on the routes of mumbai metro & BRTS will also lead to more business for
dabbawalas. Generating revenue by promotion of other brands is also an
opportunity for dabbawalas. Diversification by offering miscellaneous services like
courier, rail,bus ticketing etc.Expanding network in other cities is another way to
diversify the scope of dabbawala.

Threats:
Threats from fast food joints & small restaurants is the major threat to
dabbawalas.Food courts at malls are mega structure are the next biggest threats as
they offer tasty food and they goes bananas for it.The catering services which
offer tiffin services will make most of the people to avoid dabbawalas.Food
vouchers and cards are the biggest enemies of dabbawalas.

Conclusion
In this highly technologically advanced time “dabbawalas” are working absolutely
without technology. They have an excellent supply chain, despite the fact that they
don’t even know what it means. Most of the people working with them are semi-
literate but still they read the tiffin code correctly and deliver it. Their attitude of
competitive collaboration is equally unusual, particularly in India. Their excellent
sense of deep commitment, sense of work, ethics and unparalleled time
management system are best in place.