Dabbawala

photo

The Dabbawala Supply Chain

I'd never heard of the dabbawalas until a month or so ago, when I read an article on them the always entertaining Economist (July 12, 2008).

For those in the dark, dabbawalas are delivery men (barefoot and mostly illiterate, by the way) who bring Mumbai office workers a nice warm lunch to their offices. In the good old days, these meals were home-made; in today's world, a good proportion are catered. (Remember, this is India: think outsourcing.)

Each day, about 5,000 dabbawalas deliver a total of roughly 200,000 meals - all through a hyper-efficient, color-coded supply chain that relies naught on technology. Their results are spectacular: a Six Sigma delivery rate! That's one slip-up in every 6 million deliveries - the vaunted and often elusive "six nines" quality. (And I'm guessing that, when there's a mistake, the mistakee ends up with a pretty good meal, anyway.)

In the dabbawala logistics system , dabba-gatherers pick up the lunches, which are in transported - via bicycle - to railway stations, where they're bucketed by destination, and placed on the train.

When they reach their destination, dabba-deliverers grab their buckets and get them to the office workers who ordered them.

All the dabbawalas receive the same rate - ghastly by our standards, but a way out of abject poverty for the poor, illiterate folks who hold these jobs.

Interestingly, dabbawalas have developed something of a business school cult-following - there's even a Harvard Business School case study about them.

Also interesting: although they don't rely on technology to work their supply chain, the dabbawalas are not lacking in tech savvy, and they have their own web site - www.mydabbawala.com - which you will be "warmly welcome[d]" to.

Read the rest here

Pike's Place Market- Seattle, WA

More

Using less packaging is a simple idea but it is difficult to carry out this alternative way of shopping as many items already come packaged. Unpackaged, a London company has succeeded in doing so. Customers come in with containers, bags, bottles, old take out containers or whatever they find that are ready to fill and products are sold by weight. This eliminates the need for wasteful packaging and allows customers to purchase the amount they need.

It would be interesting to combine this way of purchasing things with the mobile market so customers would bring their own containers and bags each time they shopped.

What's out there?

AND

Mobile Restaurant in different culture!
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/vine_hooligans/rtw-2008/1209099600/mobile-restaurant.jpg/tpod.html
http://events.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/dining/reviews/24unde.html



Mobile Corner Store
http://www.littlethingsminiature.com/Show-Room%20NEW/images/Gerobak_Merah-03.JPG


Selling Rice around the neighborhood
http://www.jogjatransport.com/images/gerobak%202.jpg


Veggie guy that goes around the neighborhood
http://fehuangforfashion.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/gerobak-sayur-pasar-mk.jpg


Fish Market by the river
http://www.welleatenpath.com/Hoi_An_fish_market_2.jpg


Mobile Store
http://i64.servimg.com/u/f64/12/04/91/05/md_28310.jpg

Image just to illustrate my point, but how about having an area that can be set up for people to eat together? I liked Kim's idea of kitchen area where people can see cooking demos. Build a greater sense of community and get people talking with each other.

"Global Street Food"

http://www.dornbracht.com/en/index.htm?nav=1219

heres a link to an exhibition with a bunch of different ways of looking at public kitchens and what not

Mobile-

1. In full first mobile. In the medieval version of the Ptolemaic system: the outermost of the concentric spheres supposed to revolve around the earth; = PRIMUM MOBILE n. 1. Also fig. Obs.

2. Chiefly in Metaphysics. A body in motion or which is capable of movement. Now arch. and hist.

3. A cause of motion; a motive for action. Cf. PRIMUM MOBILE n. 2. rare.

i thought the first definition was a pretty interesting way of looking at the word mobile, not sure where it can lead but there are definite possibilities there. maybe a system that comprises everything surrounding the market who knows

Market-

I. A place at which trade is conducted.

1. a. A meeting or gathering together of people for the purchase and sale of provisions or livestock, publicly displayed, at a fixed time and place; the occasion or time of this. Also: the people gathered at such a meeting. Freq. with article omitted after to, from, and at. Also fig. or in figurative context.

People's Grocery - Oakland, CA

http://www.peoplesgrocery.org/article.php/faqs

Here's a link to a mobile market in Oakland, CA. Unfortunately, the project was put on an indefinite hiatus in 2006, but these FAQ's about the market provide some good information about the project model. (just scroll a bit down the link's page for the info.)

The problems they encountered and described are a really good piece of information for us.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/10/mobile-market-for-he.html

^This post has a picture of the mobile market in Oakland (it's a small picture, but you can see the gist of how it operates).

http://www.giffordfd.org/Initiatives/FarmFreshMobileMarket/tabid/409/Default.aspx

^Here's a link to the Farm Fresh Mobile Market of Syracuse with a couple pictures

Stakeholder Connections

Food Environmental Atlas and Food Access

I stumbled upon the Food Environmental Atlas from the Let's Move Campaign page. I think that it is something really interesting that we could all look at to map locations of the possibilities of where the mobile market could go. There is a module that has many different categories such as the population of local foods, the availability of food stores, proximity, etc. Definitely check this page out!

Also on the Let's Move Campaign page, there is a link to Access to Affordable and Nutritious Foods that has reports on food deserts.

Markets

Automat- vending machine like food dispenser- buy it when you need it
Vietnamese street food- perhaps having a vegetable or fruit stand and a demo kitchen using the produce from the mobile market
Fruit man instead of ice cream man
Instead of moving towards food, the food finds you- dim sum
Night markets- making it a community affair
Bus vendors

Mobile Market?

Have market on horse carriage to attract people especially kids?


Walk in Neighborhood and sell things?


Market in a Trailer Truck?

Inspiration- Bus Stop Ads

Playstation Ad
Creative Bus Stop Ads
Japanese Vending Machines- for vegetables?

Inspirational Pictures