Mumbai 13 - Unique chain of delivery of lunch boxes by Dabbawalahs

Last edited 7 days ago 

Dabbawallahs

Mumbai dabbawalas

Dabbawala loading lunch boxes on a train

A dabbawala; also spelled as dabbawalla ordabbawallah; is a person in India, most commonly in Mumbai, who is part of a delivery system that collects hot food in lunch boxes from the residences of workers in the late morning, delivers the lunches to the workplace utilizing various modes of transport, predominantly bicycles and therailway trains, and returns the empty boxes to the customer's residence that afternoon. They are also made use of by prominent meal suppliers in Mumbai where they ferry ready, cooked meals from central kitchens to the customers and back.

In Mumbai, most office workers prefer to eat home-cooked food in their workplace rather than eat outside at a food stand or at a local restaurant, usually for reasons of taste and hygiene, hence the concept. A number of work-from-home women also supply such home-cooked meals, delivering through the dabbawala network.^[1]

EtymologyEdit

A dabba, or Indian-style tiffin box.

Box coding

The word "dabbawala" when literally translated, means "one who carries a box". "Dabba" means a box (usually a cylindrical tin or aluminium container) from Persian: دَبّه‎, while "wala" is an agentive suffix, denoting a doer or holder of the preceding word.^[2] The closest meaning of the dabbawala in English would be the "lunch box delivery man".

OriginsEdit

In 1890 Bombay, Mahadeo Bhavaji Bachche started a lunch delivery service with about a hundred men.^[3] In 1930, he informally attempted to unionize the dabbawallas. Later, a charitable trust was registered in 1956 under the name of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust. The commercial arm of this trust was registered in 1968 as Mumbai Tiffin Box Supplier's Association. The current president of the association is Raghunath Medge.

Supply chainEdit

A collecting dabbawala, usually on bicycle, collects dabbas either from a worker's home or from the dabba makers. As many of the carriers are of limited literacy (the average literacy of Dabbawallahs is that of 8th grade^[4]), the dabbas (boxes) have some sort of distinguishing mark on them, such as a colour or group of symbols.

The dabbawala then takes them to a designated sorting place, where he and other collecting dabbawalas sort (and sometimes bundle) the lunch boxes into groups. The grouped boxes are put in the coaches of trains, with markings to identify the destination of the box (usually there is a designated car for the boxes). The markings include the railway station to unload the boxes and the destination building delivery address.

At each station, boxes are handed over to a local dabbawala, who delivers them. The empty boxes are collected after lunch or the next day and sent back to the respective houses.

Dabbawallas tend to belong to the Varkarisect of Maharashtra and consider Tukaram's teachings of helping each other to be central to their efficiency and motivation.^[5]

Appearance and codingEdit

Lunch boxes are usually marked in several ways: (1) abbreviations for collection points, (2) colour code for starting station, (3) number for destination station and (4) markings for handling dabbawala at destination, building and floor.^[6]

A typical dabbawala lunch.

It was estimated in 2007 that the dabbawala industry was still growing by 5-10% per annum.^[7]

The dabbawalas have started to embrace technology, and now allow for delivery requests through SMS.^[8] A colour-coding system identifies the destination and recipient. Each dabbawala is required to contribute a minimum capital in kind, in the form of two bicycles, a wooden crate for the tiffins, white cotton kurta-pyjamas, and the white Gandhi cap (topi). Each month there is a division of the earnings of each unit.

Uninterrupted servicesEdit

The service is almost always uninterrupted, even on the days of severe weather such asmonsoons. The local dabbawalas and population know each other well, and often form bonds of trust. Dabbawalas are generally well accustomed to the local areas they cater to, and use shortcuts and other low-profile routes to deliver their goods on time. Occasionally, people communicate between home and work by putting messages inside the boxes (See: The Lunchbox film); however, with the rise of instant communication such as SMS and instant messaging, this trend is vanishing. Since 1890, when the dabbawalas formally came into existence, none of them had ever gone on strike until 2011 when the members decided to head towards Azad Maidan to support Anna Hazare in his campaign against corruption.^[9]

Economic analysisEdit

Each dabbawala, regardless of role, is paid around 8,000 rupees per month (about US$131 in 2014). Between 175,000 and 200,000 lunch boxes are moved each day by 4,500 to 5,000 dabbawalas, all with an extremely small nominal fee and with utmost punctuality.

It is frequently claimed that dabbawalas make less than one mistake in every six million deliveries.^[10] However, this error rate is conservative as it is estimated from Ragunath Medge, the president of the Mumbai Tiffinmen's Association in 1998, and is not from a rigorous study. Medge told Subrata Chakravarty, the lead author of the 'Fast Food' article by Forbes.^[11] thatdabbawalas make a mistake "almost never, maybe once every two months" and this statement was extrapolated by Subrata Chakravarty to be a rate of "one mistake in 8 million deliveries." ^[12]

The ABC has produced a documentary on dabbawalas^[13] and Prince Charles visited them during his visit to India; he had to fit in with their schedule, since their timing was too precise to permit any flexibility. Charles also invited them to his wedding with Camilla Parker Bowles in London on 9 April 2005. Owing to the tremendous publicity, some of the dabbawalas were invited to give guest lectures in some of the top business schools of India, which is very unusual.

The New York Times reported in 2007 that the 125-year-old dabbawala industry continues to grow at a rate of 5–10% per year.^[7]

Awards, Studies and recognitionEdit

Awards / AccreditationsEdit

• ISO 9001:2000 certified by the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand ^[14]

Studies and accoladesEdit

• In 2001, Pawan G. Agrawal carried out hisPhD research in " A Study & Logistics & Supply Chain Management of Dabbawala in Mumbai". He often presents his results on the efficiency of Dabbawallas in various fora.^[15]

• In 2005, the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) featured a case study on the Mumbai Dabbawallas from a management perspective of logistics.^[16]

• In 2010, Harvard Business School added the case study The Dabbawala System: On-Time Delivery, Every Time to their compendium for its high level of service (equivalent of Six Sigma or better) with a low-cost and simple operating system.^[17]

World recordEdit

On 21 March 2011, Prakash Baly Bachche carried three dabbawalla tiffin crates on his head at one time which was entered as aGuinness world record^[18]