Dabbawallas History
A dabbawalla or tifinwalla is a person in the city of Mumbai, which is in India, whose work is mainly to deliver and carry fresh homemade food from various suburban houses in special lunch boxes for the office workers. The lunch boxes are also known as tiffin boxes. Tiffin refers to lunch that is not very heavy and is an old English word. In Hindi and Marathi, “dabba” means a box, “walla” is a person in some trade, which involves the object of the preceding term, and thus, dabawalla is a person who carries a box. This is how they get their name. Even though their work seems to be very simple, it is not so as they are part of an extremely specialized business that began in our country in 1890 and was registered in 1956. This 118 years old system of collecting tiffin boxes from residences and delivering them to the officers is done by around 5000 dabbawallas and delivered to over 2 lakh customers.
Mahadeo Havaji Bachche was responsible for the foundation of the dabbawallas. He started this lunch delivery system with around a few hundred men only. At that time the British officers in India did not like to have the locally prepared food. Thus, this service was mainly launched for them. But today, the main customers of the dabbawallas are the office workers and Indian business people of Mumbai. Also some of the dabbawallas not only deliver the tiffin boxes but also cook the lunch for them.
Symbol, Aim and Approach
Today the Mumbai dabbawallas symbolize accuracy, time management, hard work and honesty. They are recognized not only all over India but also in the entire world for their excellence in time management, supply chain management, integrity, punctual service, low price, honesty and commitment. Their main aim is to alter the present conception about good homemade Indian food so that people all over the world can enjoy them. Their organization is unique as they deliver almost 2 lakh homemade lunches everyday from homes to offices all within 3 to 4 hours. That is around 65 million dabbas each year.
Service and Trust
Most of the dabbawallas are illiterate as they belong to the Varkari community in the Maratha clan and even though their job appears to be simple, they are capable of delivering lunches to the officers completely on time and also to the right customer. Their service is not even interrupted by extreme weather conditions, as Mumbai is famous for the monsoons. The customers know the dabbawallas who deliver and pick up their tiffin boxes and thus, lack of trust is never an issue with them. Everyday they cover an area of nearly 60 to 70 km while collecting and delivering the dabbas. These local dabbawallas are very well accustomed to the area of their service and can easily access any given destination. Earlier their other use was also for people to communicate between their work and home through messages put inside the boxes. But now due to mobiles this service is rarely used.
The dabbawallas do not observe strikes and their error rate has been estimated to be just 1 in 16 million transactions bringing their performance to 99.999999% efficient. They strictly maintain a no drinking discipline during their business hours and always wear their white cap and carry their identity cards. The dabbawallas travel either by the Mumbai local trains or bicycles or simply walk to their destinations situated in every corner in Mumbai. Each dabbawalla delivers and collects up to 35 dabbas at a time.
Economic Analysis
All of the dabbawallas are treated equally within the system and regardless of their function every dabbawalla is paid around 4000-5000 rupees in a month, plus bonuses on festivals. Their annual turnover is around 36 crore. The dabbawallas themselves also contribute a small amount of capital taken in kind, which is a bicycle, a wooden crate where the tiffin boxes are kept, cotton kurta and pyjamas that are white and their Gandhi topi. It has been estimated that the industrial growth of the dabbawallas is around 5 to 10 percent per year.
Working and Operation
The dabbawallas work in an extremely systematic order and completely on time.
10:00 to 11:20 am
The first dabbawallas collect the dabbas from the respective houses, restaurants and catering services and deliver them to their nearest railway station. Here the dabbas are sorted by another dabbawalla according to their destinations. They are loaded into wooden crates and are they are placed in the different goods and luggage carriers of the trains. The dabbawallas generally occupy the last compartment of the trains. Then the actual journey takes place.
11:20 am to 12:30 pm
The dabbas are then unloaded at the destination station where they are rearranged according to their destination area and building. They are then delivered to their respective customers exactly at 12:30 pm. In certain areas where the number of customers is high, special crates, which can carry 150 dabbas, are specially sent there by 3 or 4 dabbawallas.
1:15 to 2:30
The whole process is reversed at the time of collection. The dabbawallas begin their collection process by picking up the tiffin boxes of the officers they had delivered to earlier and reach the destination railway station. Here all the dabbawallas meet again for segregation according to their destination suburbs.
2:30 to 3:30
Their return journey by trains begins and all the dabbawallas meet after their daily routine of delivering and picking up the dabbas from the various offices end. This is a more pleasant journey for them as compared to their earlier one and thus they lighten up their moods by singing, joking and merry making.
3:30 to 4:00
The dabbawallas on reaching the origin station finally sort their dabbas and dispatch them back to their respective houses, restaurants and catering services. They again meet the next day at the origin station and the same process takes place.
Color Coding
Since the dabbawallas are illiterate, they use a color-coding system so that they can identify the customers without reading their names or addresses. Thus, their whole system does not use any computer systems or modern technologies.The boxes are sorted and differentiated on the basis of colored markings on their lids. These markings indicate the source and the destination address of the respective dabbas. Although all the tiffin boxes are similar looking there has almost never been an incident of a wrong tiffin box being delivered. This is mainly due to their widely used secret system of color codes.
For example, consider the following,
- VLP: Vile Parle (suburban homes in Mumbai from where dabbas are picked)
- E: Code for Dabbawalla at residential station
- 3: Code for destination Station eg. Churchgate Station
- 9EX12: Code for Dabbawallas at Destination, where
- EX: Express Towers (name of building)
- 12: Floor no.
Management
The levels in the organization structure of the management is as such:
- President;
- Vice President;
- General Secretary;
- Treasurer;
- Directors (9);
- Mukadam;
- Members (5000).
The operational aspects of the dabbawallas are a primary example of the Michael Porter’s Five Forces Theory which defines their scope and the practical nature of the competition they face in order to attain leadership. Although the dabbawallas follow these principles they are completely ignorant of it. The five principles are:
Threat of newcomers
Porter says that the threat of a newcomer can be dangerous for a company as it may loose its market share to the new company. But the service and experience of the dabbawallas has been like a huge barrier for possible competition. Also it is extremely difficult to duplicate the supply chain management network created by them that using the Mumbai local trains as an anchor.
Existing competition
Porter says that strategies are determined using an exclusive combination of various actions so that different types of value proposition can be delivered in an improved way. Although the dabbawallasface huge competition from junk food outlets and office canteens, but since none of them serve homemade food, their offering stays unparalleled.
Bargaining power of the buyers
The rates for delivery of dabbas are extremely nominal and thus there is no question of further bargaining about it. Also, their present monopoly neutralizes any further bargaining by the customers. Thus, they have set up a complete win-win system perfect not only for themselves but also for the customers.
Bargaining power of the sellers
The dabbawallas have no investment; they use no fuel, technology or infrastructure and as a result are independent of the suppliers. They can be categorized as a service oriented organization and are thus not dependent on the sellers for buying their products. Their supreme driving force is human capital and their strategic framework helps them to link and identify the critical processes, information and capital required to run such an organization.
Threat from a new or substitute service or product
An alternative to homemade food is not a viable option in our country. Thus, the dabbawalla’s service does not face any threat in their immediate future. This helps them to expand their present network covering newer cities with increase in demand in those places too.
Most of the management learning processes involves isolating the various productive business patterns and analyzing those patterns to get reasons for using them. By analyzing the success of the dabbawallas from the point of view of Michael Porter’s Five Forces Theory we can understand the principles and concepts of operational management utilized by them. Their success story is also very educative from the business point of view. The dabbawallas have implemented a microeconomic theory in their services without even understanding the basic philosophies behind it. Thus the dabbawallas are a perfect example to understand such unique management approaches. These men have no academic qualification and are mostly uneducated but practically they are more literate than even the graduates. Their knowledge of life, application techniques of the mind and earnest approach have left them remarkable. Even without a wristwatch their time management is perfect.
The success of the dabbawallas completely depends on their efficient time management and teamwork. The commitment and complete dedication of the illiterate and barefoot dabbawallas has created an unbreakable link in their broad delivery chain such that there are no other system even comparable to them. Their simple color-coding technique also doubles as an identity system for their source and destination recipients. They also do not have an elaborate management layer, as there are only three tiers of management. The supply chain system of the dabbawallas was not built in a day.
Although some people may not think much about their business that impact that they have had on the lives if the people of Mumbai cannot simply be ignored. Their name itself brings to our mind the taste of homemade food along with its aroma. They are very well mannered and extremely punctual. They have all the important qualities of business management that are completely essential for organizing such a service.
Even though their service is essentially low tech, as they have barefoot delivery people as their primary workers, they have nowadays started to adopt certain modern technologies to build a better delivery system. For example, we can now book for delivery of dabbas through SMSs. They even have their official website, http://www.mydabbawala.com, which provides us with a lot of important services. They have online booking of dabbas to keep up with the deliveries. There are also online polls, which ensure that the customers provide feedback on their services. The way of working of these dabbawallas are remarkable to the Westerners, as their success involves none of their technologies. They use simple three or four symbols that are crudely made on their dabbas and created a unique food supply chain with remarkable teamwork, values and intuition contrary to the computerized and highly advanced decision making systems that costs billions of dollars in the Western countries today.
Advantages
- Homemade food is good for our health unlike junk food, which if consumed daily can sometimes make us sick. This not only helps to cut down on doctor bills but also our absence from the office due to diseases.
- It is cheap as the dabbawallas deliver food from our homes saving a lot of our hard earned money. They charge a nominal fee of around 200 to 300 per month, which is extremely reasonable.
- A lot of people prefer homemade food to outside food. But for those who live alone the dabbawallas deliver good quality food through restaurant, which taste like homemade food. These restaurants are also very cheap as compared to other junk food outlets.
- The Mumbai local trains are almost always extremely crowded making it very difficult to even carry a small tiffin box especially in the peak hours. Most people leave their houses at around 8 or 9 in the morning, which is the peak time and sometimes it is not possible for their family members to prepare the food on time. Thus the dabbawallas deliver hot food right to the customers.
- They have an extremely reliable service and heir accuracy and performance is brilliant. They also never go on strikes.
- Most of them belong to small villages and are illiterate and through this service we are providing employment to around 5000 dabbawallas and helping their families.
- They are an icon of hard work and are among India’s top brands making the Maratha’s proud. Thus, their service helps to build India’s image and nurture Marathi culture.
Mumbai Dabbawallas association:The Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust of Mumbai
The Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust was actually registered in 1956 and the commercial association of this trust was later registered as the Mumbai Tiffin Box Carriers Association in 1968 Raghunath Megde is the president and Gangaram Talekar is the secretary of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust of Mumbai.
This association mainly attempts the various problems that are faced by the dabbawallas, like
- Deficiency of bicycles that are the main transportation mode for delivery and collection.
- Deficiency of wooden carts used for transporting the tiffin boxes as the number of customers are increasing daily.
- They do not have any medical coverage or insurance that sometimes becomes a huge problem for them if suddenly one of dabbawallas become ill or faces an accident.
- They do not have post retirement gains since the dabbawalla have no fixed retirement age and they get paid as long as they can work properly. So if they are not capable of working due to their old age they have absolutely no other survival means.
- There are also no existing arrangements for the education of the children of the dabbawallas. Since their earnings are quite low they find it very difficult to provide quality education to their children thus, hampering their academic growth and development.
- They also face many other difficult problems that occur largely due to their low income and no education.
Achievements, Awards and Felicitation
The dabbawallas have received the Six Sigma Quality Certification in 1998, from the Forbes Group, which was established in 1986 by International Quality Federation for their accuracy and almost nil error rates. They are an ISO 9001:2000 certified organization by The Joint Accreditation System Of Australia And New Zealand or JASANZ. They have also received the Outstanding Service Organization Award from NIQR. They have also been honored by the Shri.Varkari Prabhodhan Mahasmati Dindi (palkhi) Sohala in 2001. They have a World Record in Best Time Management, they have their name in the Guinness Book of World Records and has also been registered by the Ripley’s Believe it or not.
They received international fame after a historic visit from England’s Prince Charles and also by Sir Richard Branson who is the chairperson of the Virgin Groups in England. A number of TV stations, like NDTV, Sony TV, CNN, CNBC TV, Star TV, MTV, UTV and BBC, have produced documentaries on the dabbawallas. MBA institutes, Universities, Business schools and even corporate organizations all across the world have invited these dabbawallas to share their ideas of Supply Chain Management and Time Management with the students and workers.
References
Curkovic, Sime & Robert Sroufe; 2008; Measuring TQEM returns from the application of quality frameworks; Business Strategy and the Environment; 17, 2, 93-106; Western Michigan University, Haworth College of Business, Management Department, Kalamazoo, MI, USA.
DF; 2008 Management Lecture By Dabbawala; Dabbawala Foundation; Web.
Jacobs, Robert F, Richard B. Chase, Nicholas J. Aquilano; 2000; Operations Management for Competitive Advantage; Edition: 9, revised; McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Kara, Sami & Shaun O’Kane; 2005; The role of human factors in flexibility management: A survey; Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing; 12, 1, 75-119; Department of Industrial Technology and Management, UK.