CASE STUDY ON:

“THE
D A B B AWA L A S O F
MUMBAI”

Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology, Jais.

GROUP NO:2 BRIKESH BHARTI (07)
DEVESH KUMAR (08)
DIVESH BHAMRE (09)
HRIDESH DWIDEDI (11)
MANISHA SONKAR (12)
UNDER THE GUIDANCE: DR. A. MUKHERJEE
INTRODUCTION

 The dabbawallas (“lunchbox delivery men”) Originated in late colonial times as

individual, independent, entrepreneurs.
 They were organized in late 19 th century.
 Each dabbawalla is employed by one of the city’s 800 contractors (mukkadams).
 The contractor and tiffin carrier both belong to the Mumbai Tiffin Box Carriers
Association.
 The Mumbai Dabbawallas have been taking lunch on time every single day to the office
goers since past 125 years, crossing the steep natural climatic condition in the city, which
is usually monsoon or scorching heat.
A TYPICAL JOURNEY
 PHASE 1: 10 a.m. Raj’s Tiffin carrier 1 on the Ramaswamy’s door, cover 38 apartments.
 PHASE 2: 10:30 a.m. Carrier 1 transferred to carrier 2.
 PHASE 3: At railway station , different collectors are there, say carrier 3 on which he loads his
consignment on a ‘tray’ a wooden crate of 2.5 meter long. 40 tiffin's has total weight more than
60 kg puts the tray on his head and runs to the platform as the trains rolls.
 PHASE 4: Now, at the Church Gate , Raj tiffin enters in last phase of its journey, tiffin carrier 4
is waiting on the platform. By 12: 30 p.m the carrier has carried his tray up four flights and
boxes leftout to the customers’ offices. At 2:00 pm the moring’s delivery service tracks down
the above steps in reverse.
THE LOGISTICS PERSPECTIVE
Exact one to one correspondence with the tiffin carrier system.
These systems have unique customer supplier pairings for each delivery.
According to the case study, it is a conjoined structure which involves 20000 lunch
boxes, collected every day from an equal number of sources ,and deliver to 80,000
destinations the same day within the time of three hours.
Uses virtually no technology is limited to face to face communication, particularly
coding is done to identify the boxes.
SWOT ANALYSIS
 STRENGTH
 Pride in work  OPPORTUNITIES
 Time management  Tie up with caterers
 Ownership  Expansion of services to the metros
 Teamwork  Booking of the services through internet
 WEAKNESS
 Dependent On Mumbai Local Trains
 THREATS
 Limited Fund Flow of Association
 Threats from fast food
 Competitors: Magic-O-Meal, Food Plus by HDFC,
restaurants etc..
LEARNINGS
 Create a sense of Purpose and Values
 Create a sense of Ownership
 Create self-discipline
 Coordination and support
 Time Management
 Effective Hierarchy
TEAM AND INTER TEAM PROCESES
 Basically, contractors runs the business through two committees
 The Mangal Committee-
-11 elected contractors for 5 years
-Dealing with brokering conflicts and addressing potential contraction
 The Trust Committee
-11 elected contractors for 5 years
-Responsible for operation of the courtesy
HOME MADE FOOD
 Employees can’t go for street food and restaurant daily as it costs 3-4 times more than
home food as well as the chances of falling ill is also there.
 The main purpose of the dabbawala’s are to take the tiffin timely to the employees office
so that they don’t have to go outside for eating.
 As the employees are middle class so the money saving is important for them and the
dabbawala system cost them a minute amount of money which they can easily afford.
 With spending a very less amount of money per day the employees are getting warm home
made food just in time.
BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCES
Sociology – The way the dabbawalla manages the tiffin from the home to employee office
literally no conversation and only understanding the 3 to 4 symbols written in
tiffin’s. The trust and punctuality is the main reason of the success of the
dabbawalla system in Mumbai.
Psychology – The carriers are very little educated or illiterate but their only goal is
customer satisfaction i.e., to provide a warm home made food to employee in
time.
CONCLUSION
The dabbawalla system is working with very low error in a month without the use of
technology by even just very little verbally communication with only use of symbols.
The cost per day of supplying tiffin is a very low amount or we can say with very little
investment this system is working successfully as compare to other system in the world
which use a large investment with a comprehensive use of technology.
The supply chain is very excellent and as a consequence the output is very good too.
As we see the education of the carriers is not involve in these operations but only the
workers deep commitment towards their job is the key of their success.