Overview of Dabbawalas India from logistics and supply chain perspective

1. SUPPLY CHAIN OF DABBA WALAS
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2. Company Profile
 Started in 1890 and registered as Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box
Suppliers Trust in 1956
 Six sigma designation and ISO 9001 accreditation.
 Error rate – 1 in 16 million transactions (99.999999% delivery
accuracy rate)
 5000 employees with average literacy of 8th Grade
Schooling
 4,00,000 transactions every day and total coverage area of
60 to 70 kms within Mumbai
 Cost of service is Rs. 400/- to 500/- month
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3. Schematic Diagram of Dabba Walas’
Supply Chain
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4. Distribution Network 4

5. Distribution Network 5
Andheri station

6. Train route

7. Supply chain drivers
 Logistics drivers
 Facilities :
 Distribution of Dabbas daily & Service based – no physical
warehouses to store dabbas
 Location of Aggregation point matters – railway stations
 Capacity of crates
 Inventory :
 Nil – almost stable demand and return of lunch boxes in reverse
order
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8. Supply chain drivers
 Transportation
 Through cycle, cart, train and by walk
 0% Fuel reliant
 Very low transportation cost
 Each person has to handle 35-40 dabbas
 Maximum collection time of 2 minutes
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10. Supply Chain drivers
 Cross sectional drivers
 Information
 Decentralized – better flow of information
 Absence of IT analytics
 Simple coding system – common and easily
understandable
 Sourcing
 People from particular community is sourced – minimum
capital is required
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12. Supply Chain drivers
 Pricing
 No competition
 Low service cost to customers
 ( Cost of taking lunch in hotels nearby offices per
month + medical expenses due to unhygienic food
per month ) > ( service cost of delivering lunch boxes +
cost of preparing food in home )
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13. IT system usage in supply chain
 No use of any modern technology for carrying out the
logistics
 At present, website and SMS services are provided to
customers to facilitate on-line booking and delivery
request through SMS respectively
 Online polls on website – to get customer feedback
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14. SC concepts in Dabbawalas’
supply chain
 Push view - response to a quite stable customer order by
keeping people trained well in advance
 Efficient reverse logistics - transfer of empty lunch boxes
to the source location
 Prevalent characteristics of cross docking without any
fuel based vehicles at destinations
 Continuous improvement over the past 120 years
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15. “ Dabbawalas got Six Sigma because they didn’t
care about the certification but cared only about
customer satisfaction “
“Our lunch can go wrong but not the Mumbai
dabbawalas.” – The people of Mumbai
Ultimate driver behind the success :