DABBAWALA

-by

Raveendra Rao.K.
Faculty, MIM
 Which is the best managed organization
in the world, operating from Mumbai?

 received the Six Sigma award from the

Forbes magazine.

 Only those organizations get the Six

Sigma award that can keep their defects
at around 1 defect every 6,000,000 (six
million) deliveries.
DABBAWALA
a door-to-door service
 A Parsi banker finally found a solution. He
employed a carrier to fetch his lunch every
afternoon.

 The idea caught on and this inspired many

people to become dabba carriers.

 Soon each dabbawala had a handful of

customers and they differentiated between
dabbas by tying coloured strings.
Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers
Association (MTBSA) or Dabbawala

 120 year old organization it came into

existence in 1890.

 Provides quality door-to-door service

of supplying Tiffin boxes .

 4,500 semi-literate members.

Who are the Dabbawalas?
 Descendants of the Maharashtrian warrior-
king Shivaji’s community

 They believe in employing people from their

own community.
 Education till standard 7th

 Minimum investment, either in cash or

kind, is expected as capital from each new
dabbawala who is recruited.
Operates at 3 Levels:

 Governing Council: President, Vice-

President, General Secretary, Treasurer and
9 Directors.

 Mukadams (Supervisors)

 Dabbawalas
Competition in Co-operation
 Divided into sub-groups of 15 to 25
each who are supervised by four
Mukadams.

 Each group is financially independent

but co-ordinates with other groups
for delivery.
The relay race of the 'Dabbawalas'
 Tiffins are collected from homes of
customers between 7am to 9am and are
carried to the nearest railway station.

 At various intermediary stations they are

hauled onto platforms and are
sorted out for area-wise distribution
Continued…
 Each dabbawala concentrates on locating
only 40 Tiffin's under his charge. This
specialization
makes the entire system efficient and
error-free.

 Finally they pick up the sorted Tiffin's from

stations and deliver it to the respective
destinations.
Continued….
 After the lunch hour the same
process occurs in the reverse
direction and by 6pm the empty
tiffins return to the customer's home.
Returns & Earnings…
 Charges Rs.150 to 325 per month
from customers.
 A group of 20 members has
approximately 800 customers which
earns Rs 1,00,000 per month.
 A Dabbawala earns Rs 5000 to Rs
6000 per month.
 A BBC crew filming dabbawalas in
action was amazed at their speed.

 So, how do they work so efficiently?

Elegant Logistics and Supply
chain…
 Public transport
 And footwork and involving multiple
transfer points.
 A single lunch pack could change
hands three to four times in the
course of its daily journey
Continued…
 A coding system, each color
represents an area or block of
Mumbai and the lines, crosses and
dots represent streets, buildings
and even floors. A single-color
notation indicates a high priority
delivery. These complex codes can
be only understood by the
Dabbawalas
Continued..
 Web site (www.mydabbawala.com)
and text messaging order taking
system.
 Their mistake rate is just 1 in 16
million deliveries
 Forbes Global magazine to award its
Six Sigma certification in 2001
Dabbawalas…..
connecting people
 Supplying Airtel's pre-paid cards, new
connections and bundled handsets.
Registration forms :
Give registration forms to the
prospective customers in the morning
and collect filled up forms in evening.
Airtel the tie-up is a `win-win' deal
 Dabbawalas' now earns additional
income of Rs 250 for every new
subscriber.