Dabbawala

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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