MUMBAI DABBAWALAS

A dabbawala; also spelled as dabbawalla or dabbawallah; is a person in India, most

commonly in Mumbai, who is part of a delivery system that collects hot food in lunch boxes
from the residences of workers in the late morning, delivers the lunches to the workplace
utilizing various modes of transport, predominantly bicycles and the railway trains, and
returns the empty boxes back to the customer's residence that afternoon. They are also made
use of by prominent meal suppliers in Mumbai where they ferry ready, cooked meals from
central kitchens to the customers and back.
In Mumbai, most office goers prefer to eat home cooked food rather than eat outside, usually
for reasons of taste and hygiene, hence the concept. A number of work-from-home women
also supply such home cooked meals, delivering through the dabbawala network.
[1]

Contents
[hide]
1 Etymology
2 1890 - Beginning
3 Supply chain
o 3.1 Appearance and coding
o 3.2 Uninterrupted services
4 Economic analysis
5 Awards, Studies and recognition
o 5.1 Awards / Accreditations
o 5.2 Studies and accolades
o 5.3 Six Sigma myth
6 World record
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links
MUMBAI DABBAWALAS


A dabba, or Indian-style tiffin box.


Box coding
The word "dabbawala" 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.
[2]
The closest meaning of the dabbawala in
English would be the "lunch box delivery man".
1890 - Beginning[edit]
In 1890, Mahadeo Havaji Bachche started a lunch delivery service with about a hundred
men.
[3]
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 current president of the association is Raghunath Medge.
Supply chain[edit]
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 of limited literacy (the average literacy of
MUMBAI DABBAWALAS
Dabbawallahs is 8th grade
[4]
), the dabbas (boxes) 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 railway station to unload the
boxes and the destination building delivery address.
At each station, boxes are handed over to a local dabbawala, who delivers them. The empty
boxes are collected after lunch or the next day and sent back to the respective houses.
Dabbawallas tend to belong to the Varkari sect of Maharashtra and consider Tukaram's
teachings of helping each other to be central to their efficiency and motivation.
[5]

Appearance and coding[edit]
Lunch boxes are usually marked in several ways: (1) abbreviations for collection points, (2)
colour code for starting station, (3) number for destination station and (4) markings for
handling dabbawala at destination, building and floor.
[6]



A typical dabbawala lunch.


It was estimated in 2007 that the dabbawala industry was still growing by 5-10% per
annum.
[7]

The dabbawalas have started to embrace technology, and now allow for delivery requests
through SMS.
[8]
A colour-coding system identifies the destination and recipient. Each
dabbawala is 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 Gandhi cap (topi).
Each month there is a division of the earnings of each unit.
MUMBAI DABBAWALAS
Uninterrupted services[edit]
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.
Since 1890, when the dabbawalas formally came into existence, none of them had ever gone
on strike until 2011 when the members decided to head towards Azad Maidan to support
Anna Hazare in his campaign against corruption.
[9]

Economic analysis[edit]
Each dabbawala, regardless of role, is paid about eight thousand rupees per month. Between
175,000 and 200,000 lunch boxes are moved by 4,500 to 5,000 dabbawalas, all with an
extremely small nominal fee and with utmost punctuality.
It is frequently claimed that dabbawalas make less than one mistake in every six million
deliveries.
[10]
However, this error rate is conservative as it is estimated from Ragunath
Medge, the president of the Mumbai Tiffinmen's Association in 1998, and is not from a
rigorous study. Medge told Subrata Chakravarty, the lead author of the 'Fast Food' article by
Forbes.
[11]
that dabbawalas make a mistake "almost never, maybe once every two months"
and this statement was extrapolated by Subrata Chakravarty to be a rate of "one mistake in 8
million deliveries."
[12]

The ABC has produced a documentary on dabbawalas
[13]
and Prince Charles visited them
during his visit to India; he had to fit in with their schedule, since their timing was too precise
to permit any flexibility. 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,
[14]
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.
[7]

Awards, Studies and recognition[edit]
Awards / Accreditations[edit]
ISO 9001:2000 certified by the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New
Zealand
[15]

Studies and accolades[edit]
MUMBAI DABBAWALAS
In 2001, Pawan G. Agrawal carried out his PhD research in " A Study & Logistics &
Supply Chain Management of Dabbawala in Mumbai". He often presents his results
on the efficiency of Dabbawallas in various fora.
[16]

In 2005, the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) featured a case study on
the Mumbai Dabbawallas from a management perspective of logistics.
[17]

In 2010, Harvard Business School added the case study The Dabbawala System: On-
Time Delivery, Every Time to their compendium for its high level of service
(equivalent of Six Sigma or better) with a low cost and simple operating system.
[18]

Six Sigma myth[edit]
It has been frequently asserted that dabbawalas were awarded a Six Sigma certification by
Forbes magazine. This is a myth perpetuated by the news media who inferred the
accreditation from the 1998 article in Forbes.
[11]
In 2007, an explanation was provided by the
lead author of the article, Subrata Chakravarty in a private email correspondence to Gauri
Sanjeev Pathak:
"Forbes never certified the dabbawalas as being a six-sigma organization. In fact, I never
used the term at all. As you know, six-sigma is a process, not a statistic. But it is commonly
associated with a statistic of 3.4 errors per million operations, and that is what caused the
confusion . I was impressed by the efficiency and complexity of the process by which
some 175,000 tiffin boxes were sorted, transported, delivered and returned each day by
people who were mostly illiterate and unsophisticated. I asked the head of the organization
how often they made a mistake. He said almost never, maybe once every two months. Any
more than that would be unforgivable to customers. I did the math, which works out to one
mistake in 8 million deliveriesor 16 million, since the tiffin carriers are returned home each
day. That is the statistic I used. Apparently, at a conference in 2002, a reporter asked the
president whether the tiffinwallahs were a six-sigma organization. He said he didn't know
what that was. When told about the 3.4 error-per-million statistic, I'm told he said: "Then we
are. Just ask Forbes". The reporter, obviously without having read my story, wrote that
Forbes had certified the tiffinwallahs as a six-sigma organization. That phrase was picked up
and repeated by other reporters in other stories and now seems to have become part of the
folklore."
Subrata Chakravarty,
[12]

World record[edit]
On 21 March 2011, Prakash Baly Bachche carried three dabbawalla tiffin crates on his head
at one time which was entered as a Guinness world record.
[19]

References[edit]
1. Jump up ^ "In Pictures: Tiffin time in Mumbai". BBC news. 16 February 2014. Retrieved 2
May 2014.
2. Jump up ^ Pathak R.C. (1946, Reprint 2000). The Standard Dictionary of the Hindi
Language, Varanasi: Bhargava Book Depot,pp.300,680
MUMBAI DABBAWALAS
3. Jump up ^ "Bombay Dabbawalas go high-tech". Physorg.com. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
4. Jump up ^ Agrawal, Dr. Pawan. "Dabbawallahs - A talk by Dr. Pawan Agrawal". Ted X SSN
Talks. You Tube. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
5. Jump up ^ Sinha, Vikram. "On the dot - a story by Vikram Sinha". Siemens - You Tube
channel. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
6. Jump up ^ Mumbai's amazing Dabbawalas.Rediff.com (November 11, 2005).
7. ^ Jump up to:
a

b
In India, Grandma Cooks, They Deliver from The New York Times
8. Jump up ^ BBC News: India's tiffinwalas fuel economy
9. Jump up ^ http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/dabbawalas-to-strike-for-the-
first-time-in-120-years/article2369850.ece
10. Jump up ^ The Guardian. A Bombay lunchbox (June 24, 2002).
11. ^ Jump up to:
a

b
Chakravarty, Subrata N. "Fast food." Forbes. 10 Aug. 1998. Forbes
Magazine. 21 Sept. 2013 http://www.forbes.com/global/1998/0810/0109078a.html.
12. ^ Jump up to:
a

b
Pathak, Gauri Sanjeev. "Delivering the Nation: The Dabbawala s of
Mumbai." South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 33.2 (2010): 235-257.
13. Jump up ^ "Bombay Lunch Box". You Tube. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
14. Jump up ^ Amberish K Diwanji, "Dabbawallahs: Mumbai's best managed business",
Rediff.com, November 4, 2003
15. Jump up ^ Mydabbawala.com: Accolades To Dabbawala
16. Jump up ^ "Dr. Pawan Agrawal". Kaizer. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
17. Jump up ^ Ravichandran, N. (1 September 2005). World class logistics operations : The
case of Bombay dabbawallahs. Ahmedabad: Indian Institute of Management.
18. Jump up ^ The Dabbawala System: On-Time Delivery, Every Time (Case 610-059).
Harvard, Ma.: Harvard Business School. February 2010.
19. Jump up ^ "Most dabbawala tiffin crates carried on the hea". Guinness world records.
Retrieved 2 May 2014.
Further reading[edit]
Shekhar Gupta, Our computer is our head and our Gandhi cap is the cover to protect it
from the sun or rain, Indian Express, Walk the Talk, NDTV 24x7.
Hart, Jeremy (2006-03-19). "The Mumbai working lunch". The Independent Online
(The Independent group, London). Retrieved 2007-03-20.
"Indian lunchbox carriers to attend the Royal nuptials". Evening Standard (London)
(Associated Newspapers Ltd). 2005-04-05. Retrieved 2007-03-20.
Mumbai's Dabbawala: The Uncommon Story of the Common Man, Shobha Bondre.
tr. Shalaka Walimbe. OMO Books, 2011. ISBN 81-910356-1-8.
The Dabbawala System: On-Time Delivery, Every Time, by Stefan H. Thomke and
Mona Sinha, Harvard Business School Case Study, February 2010 (Revised January
2013)
External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dabbawalas.
Official website of Mumbai Dabbawala Association, Mumbai, India
Coordinates: 195824N 725657E19.97335N 72.94922E
MUMBAI DABBAWALAS
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INTRODUCTION
Six Sigma Certified Dabbawallas of Mumbai
Posted: July 23, 2008 in Supply Chain Management and Logistics
7
The Dabbawallas of Mumbai have been into existence since the 1890s. During the time
when India was still under the British rule. It was during those times that many people from
different communities came to work in Mumbai. The tiffin box delivery service was started
by Mahadeo Havaji Bacche. He recruited people from villages who were not able to earn a
good living. And thus started the legacy of The Dabbawallas of Mumbai.
The transport of lunch boxes from home to office. Thats all nothing much. Daily 4000-5000
dabbawallas carry 1,75,000 2,00,000 tiffin boxes everyday .
Taking a look into how they work will give an insight into the whole system
i)Tiffins boxes are collected by dabbawalla from a specific are and then he takes them to the
nearest railway station.
ii)The Tiffins are sorted depending on destination and and then are put in luggage carriers.
iii)Then the tiffin boxes travel in train and are taken to the railway station nearrest to their
destination.
iv)Then the tiffins are collected and then taken to their respectives offices.
Finally end of the journey and just in time to the offices for lunch. 12:30 pm is the time of
delivery.
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
MUMBAI DABBAWALAS
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 silver bicycles of the Mumbai dabbawalla's


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.
At the evenings the process is revesed, destinations become source and sources become
destination, the tiffin boxes travel back to the homes. This in the supply chain management
jargon is called Reverse Logistics. On large commercial scale this process is used by bottling
industries. Thus we see that the dabbawallas of Mumbai set one of the best examples for an
efficient supply chain. Working 6 days a week and throughout the year delivering tiffin boxes
just in time for a delicious luch, home made food in office !
MUMBAI DABBAWALAS

A Mumbai dabbawalla, or lunch-box deliveryman, sorts a crate of tiffin boxes in Mumbai, 15
November 2007. Using the Mumbai commuter rail network, lunchbox carriers or
"dabbawallas" pick up hot food from homes and deliver it to some 200,000 hungry office
workers in time for lunch. The 5,000-strong army of "dabbawallas," a century-old service,
has long been studied by business schools around their world as a model for their great time
management and organisation skills. AFP PHOTO/ Sajjad HUSSAIN (Photo credit should
read SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images)
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.
The dabbawallas have become high tech with time. They have booking on their website
mydabbawalla.com and also booking can be done by sending SMS.
The Six Sigma quality certification was established by the International Quality Federation
in 1986, to judge the quality standards of an organisation.The Six-sigma rating means that
they have a 99.99 % efficiency in delivering the lunch-boxes to the right people. According
to quality standards the dabbawallas are at par with various companies like Motorola,
Honeywell and GE. Apart from this the dabbawallas have been called to various CII
Conferences and leading institues like IIMs to deliver speech. Secretary of the Nutan
Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust Gangaram Talekar and M Medge, a tiffin
carrier contractor in a raw form both are essentially dabbawallas have been called to speak
at various leading institutes, FII Conferences, WTC etc. The New York Times reported in
2007 that the 125 year old dabbawala industry continues to grow at a rate of 5-10% per year.
In its July 11, 2008 issue, The Economist news magazine reported that dabbawallas are a
model of Six Sigma management, holding a delivery accuracy rate of 99.9999%.
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
MUMBAI DABBAWALAS
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