The Mumbai Dabbawalas are a unique lunch delivery service that has achieved world record time management. With over 5000 employees, they collect homemade lunches from homes in Mumbai and deliver them to offices within a 3 hour time period each day, with an accuracy rate of less than 6 defects per million opportunities. Despite low literacy rates and minimal resources or technology, they achieve high customer satisfaction through their commitment to timeliness and quality.

1. ORGANIZATION WHICH
HOLDS WORLD RECORD
for BEST TIME
MANAGENENT

2. MUMBAI’S
DABBAWALA
“If commitment is there, Qualification can be built”

3.  A dabbawala in Marathi ,literally means
person who carries boxes
 Dabbawala is a person in Indian city of
Mumbai who is employed in a unique
service industry whose primary
business is collecting the freshly
cooked food in lunch boxes from the
residence of office workers &
delivering it to their respective work
places and returning back the empty
boxes by using various modes of
transport

4.  The origin of the Dabbawalas' lunch
delivery service dates back to the 1890’s
during the British raj.
 The concept of dabbawala originated
when India was under the rule of British.
Many British people who came to the
colony did not like the local food, so a
service was set up to bring lunch to
these people straight from their homes.

5. Hon. Mahadeo Havaji Bacche Hon. Dhondiba Medge

6. • History : Started in 1890
• Charitable trust : Registered in 1956
• Avg. Literacy Rate : 8th Grade Schooling (85% Illiterate)
• Total area coverage : 60 Kms – 70 Kms (Virar – Churchgate
, Kalyan / Panvel –CST)
• Employee Strength : 5000
• Number of Tiffin's : 2,00,000 Tiffin Boxes i.e 4,00,000
transactions every day.
• Time Taken : 3 hours
• Total Turnover : 50 Crore INR
• Industrial Growth : 5-6% every year

7. • Technological Backup : Nil.
• Cost of service - Rs. 300 - 350/month ($ 6.00/month)
• Standard price for all (Weight, Distance, Space)
• “No strike” record as each one a share holder.
• Earnings – 5000 to 6000 p.m. per Dabbawala.
• Diwali bonus: one month’s salary by customers.
• Great at time management even during floods ( A practice
Seldom seen in Indian context)
• Six Sigma Performance. ( 1 defect in 16 Million Transaction)

8. Raghunath Medge And Mr. Gangaram Laxman Taleker

9. HOW DO THEY WORK??
Executive Committee
• Organizational Structure (5 members)
Teams of 20-25 headed by
• The Code a group leader
Individual Dabbawala’ s workload:
• Operations Collect from home – 40 tiffins
Delivery at office – 40 tiffins
Return empty tiffins to home – 40
• War Against Time tiffins

10. PRESIDENT
VICE PRESIDENT
GENERAL SECRETARY
13 members
TREASURER
DIRECTORS ( 9 )
MUKADAM
MEMBERS ( 5000 )

11. 9:30 AM TO 10:30 AM 10:34 AM TO 11:20 AM 11:20 AM TO 12:30PM
Pick up Dabba from
Unloading and
Residence/Caterer *Journey in Local
Sorting at
and bring it to Train*
Destination Station.
Andheri Station.
2:40 PM TO 3:30 PM 1:15 PM TO 2:30 PM 12:30 PM TO 1 PM
Sorting at Collection of Empty Delivery to
Destinations station. Dabba. respective
customers.
3:30 PM TO 5 PM
Returning Dabba to
Residence/Caterer.

13. • Initial Coding System used colored threads to mark 7 Islands
• Then Utilized thrown away cotton waste from tailors
• Now they are using color markers:
• E :: Code for Dabbawala Street
at residential station
• VLP :: Residential Station Ville Parle
• 3 :: Code for Destination station.
Example :: Church gate
• 9 :: Code for Dabbawala at Destination.
• Ex :: Express towers ( Building name)
• 12 :: Floor no. in the building.

15. Zones for Destination
Grant Road 1
(12) 2
Point of
Aggregation 3
Distribution
Churchgate
And Sorting
(1-10)
4
By Carriers
A E
5 at lunchtime
Lower Parel
6 To offices
B C D 7
(14)
Collection from home

16. Defects per Million % Accuracy
Opportunities (DPMO)
One Sigma 691,500 30.85%
Two Sigma 308,500 69.15%
Three Sigma 66,810 93.32%
Four Sigma 6,210 99.38%
Five Sigma 233 99.977%
Six Sigma 3.4 99.9997%
Seven Sigma 0.020 99.999998%

17. • Amazon.com • Samsung Group
• DHL • PepsiCo
• General Electrics • The McGraw Hill Companies
• HBSC Group • Toshiba
• Maple leaf food • US Army, Navy, Air force
• LG Group • Vodafone
• Motorola • Whirlpool
• Mumbai’s Dabbawalas • Wipro
n many more

18. Keep Operational cost to minimum:
• Use cycles, Hand carts, Local trains
• No big office to maintain
• No IT Budget and No Miscellaneous cost
• No Add budget – word of mouth publicity!
• Very Nominal Monthly service cost – Rs 200/-

19. Keep Capital Investment bare minimum:
• Hard Work, Honesty, Promptness and Time
management are the only investment
• Low office cost
• Cheap Hand carts
• Cycles - easy to maintain
• Use of public space for sorting

20. Just serve your costumer – nothing else !!
• Always deliver food on time – even during heavy
rains
• Always on time – even without using a watch
• Don’t try to impress or Bother costumers with
unsolicited offers
• Bothering Costumers with offer may force them to
discontinue even existing services

21. Never deviate from your core competency:
• Only business of delivering home made food to clients
• Efforts to sell other products through dhabbawala
system failed
• Be “Master of one trade rather than Jack of all”
• Develop products and services around core
competency, if required

22. Commitment matters – qualification doesn’t !!
• 85% of dabbawalas are illiterate
• Max. level of literacy – 8th standard failed
• Still able to offer world class service, as they are
committed to offer food to costumer on time
• “If commitment is there, Qualification can be built”

23. Know the implications of failure:
• If food is not delivered on time, it angers customers
and work will suffer
• May cause problem between customer and his wife
• A vegetarian gets a non-veg dabba – BIG Problem !!
• “Knowing the implications of failure makes you more
responsible and serious towards your work”

24. Build your services around existing infrastructure
• Use reliable, fast, efficient and cheap local train
services
• Many food companies in Mumbai use their own
infrastructure – tough to maintain and costly as well
• “Building new infrastructure increases the cost of
service”

25. Abandon Bad customers:
• When dabbawala knocks door, the dabba, should be
ready
• If its not for 3 consecutive days, then the sevice is
stopped as it affects the service to other customers
• “Bad customers affect operation and profitability
from existing customers”

26. Penalize employees for non compliance
• Dabbawalas are penalized for not wearing Gandhi
Topi, Consuming Alcohol, Smoking Cigarette, not
pre informing about leave and misbehaving with
customers
• After a few warnings, if dabbawala dosen’t
improve, he is expelled from system
• Discipline is main reason for their success

27. Strengths Weakness
• Simplicity with innovative • Highly dependability on
service local trains
• Co ordination, team spirit • Low funds for association
and time management • Limited access to
• Low operation cost education
• Customer satisfaction • Caste based

28. Opportunities Threats
• Wide scale publicity • Direct competition from
• Low operational cost other caterers
• Catering • Indirect competition
from fast food joints and
hotels
• Company canteens

29.  World record in Best Time Management
 Name in “Guiness Book of World Records”
 Registered with Ripley’s “believe it or not”
 Six Sigma rating by Forbes
 Got ISO 9001: 2000 for excellence in services
 One among to 50 entrepreneur in India

30. Invitations for conferences from
IIML, Harward, Cambridge, Oxford,
IIMA, Lilly, British Telecom, MIT, MET,
Dr. Reddy’s Lab Foundation Hyderabad,
SCMHRD Nashik
BITS – Pilani, and many more.
Also, Included in a subject in Graduate School of
Journalism University of California, Berkeley.

32. Television Radio
• BBC • GERMAN RADIO NETWORK
• MTV • RADIO MIRCHI
• TV TODAY • MADIO MID DAY
• TV TOKYO • FM GOLD
• CNN • BBC RADIO
• AAJ TAK n many more
• STAR TV
n many more

33.  England King Prince Charles
met dabbawalas on 4th Nov,
2003
 He was told to come to
church gate station between
1:30 to 2:30 Am, so that the
delivery of dabbas to clients
is not affected

34.  Virgin Group Chairman, Richard Branson, travelled
with Dabbawalas and delivered dabba to his own
employee.

35. US Secretary of Commerce
Gary Locke
Letter from Prince Charles
After floods in Mumbai

36. “ We don’t understand Six Sigma. We are
a bunch of illiterates. But we do know our
prime responsibility – customer
satisfaction. And to achieve that, we can
put in hard work like no one else”,
- President NMTBSA
Raghunath Medge

37. - Harish Belagali