THE SMART MANAGER
hot potatoes
by Pradip Thakker
4,500 semi-literate dabbawalas collect and deliver 175,000 packages within hours. What should we
learn from this unique, simple and highly efficient 120 year old logistics system?
h ungry kya? What would you like: pizza from the local
Dominos (30 minute delivery) or a fresh, hot meal from home?
Most managers dont have a choice. Its either a packed lunch or
junk food grabbed from a fast food outlet. Unless you live in
Mumbai, that is, where a small army of dabbawalas picks up
175,000 lunches from homes and delivers them to harried students,
"Every morning I get up and look
through the Forbes list of the managers and workers on every working day. At your desk. 12.30
richest Indians. If Im not there, pm on the dot. Served hot, of course. And now you can even order
I go to work," says Pradip Thakker, through the Internet.
an alumni of Narsee Monjee
The Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association (MTBSA) is a
Institute of Management
Studies and research executive streamlined 120 year old organization with 4,500 semi-literate
at Blackstone Market Facts. members providing a quality door-to-door service to a large and
Born and brought up in a
loyal customer base.
Mumbai joint family, Thakker
has a Masters in Commerce How has MTBSA managed to survive through these tumul-
from Mumbai University. An tuous years? The answer lies in a twin process that combines
ambitious Thakker believes that
competitive collaboration bet-ween team members with a high level
"a moderate addiction to money
does not hurt". of technical efficiency in logistics management. It works like this.
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DABBAWALAS regroup ACCORDING to the number of traveling south between 10.00
TIFFINS to be DELIVERED in a PARTICULAR area am and 11.30 am.
During the journey, these 80
After the customer leaves for railway station. At various dabbawalas regroup according to
work, her lunch is packed into a intermediary stations, they are the number of tiffins to be delivered
tiffin provided by the dabbawala. hauled onto platforms and sorted in a particular area, and not accord-
A color-coded notation on the out for area-wise distribution, so ing to the groups they actually
handle identifies its owner and that a single tiffin could change belong to. If 150 tiffins are to be
destination. Once the dabbawala hands three to four times in the delivered in the Grant Road
has picked up the tiffin, he moves course of its daily journey. Station area, then four people are
fast using a combination of At Mumbais downtown assigned to that station, keeping
bicycles, trains and his two feet. stations, the last link in the chain, in mind one person can carry no
ABBC crew filming dabbawalas a final relay of dabbawalas fan out more than 35-40 tiffins.
in action was amazed at their to the tiffins destined bellies. Lunch During the earlier sorting
speed. Following our dabbawala hour over, the whole process moves process, each dabbawala would
wasnt easy, our film crew quickly into reverse and the tiffins return have concentrated on locating
lost him in the congestion of the to suburban homes by 6.00 pm. only those 40 tiffins under his
train station. At Victoria Terminus To better understand the charge, wherever they come
we found other fast moving complex sorting process, lets take from, and this specialization
dabbawalas, but not our subject... an example. At Vile Parle Station, makes the entire system efficient
and at Mr Bhapats ayurvedic there are four groups of dabba- and error-free. Typically it takes
pharmacy, the lunch had walas, each has twenty members about ten to fifteen minutes to
arrived long before the film and each member services 40 search, assemble and arrange 40
crew, the documentary noted customers. That makes 3,200 tiffins onto a crate, and by 12.30
wryly. So, how do they work tiffins in all. These 3,200 tiffins pm they are delivered to offices.
so efficiently? have to be collected by 9.00 am, In a way, MTBSAs system is
reached the station and sorted like the Internet. The Internet
team work according to their destinations by relies on a concept called packet
The entire system depends on 10.00 am when the Dabbawala switching. In packet switched
teamwork and meticulous Special train arrives. networks, voice or data files are
timing. Tiffins are collected from The railway provides sorting sliced into tiny sachets, each with
homes between 7.00 am and 9.00 areas on platforms as well as its own coded address which
am, and taken to the nearest special compartments on trains directs its routing.
These packets are then ferried
color coding in bursts, independent of other
Here, the markings for the collection point are: packets and possibly taking
VP for Vile Parle, C for Cooper Hospital. The different routes, across the country
VP red color denotes the station and the or the world, and re-assembled at
dabbawala team at the collection and delivery
9 their destination. Packet switching
C 10 points. Destination marksings are the 10
M maximizes network density, but
(Nariman Point), 9 is the dabbawala handling
16 there is a downside: your packets
the destination area, m is Mittal Tower and 16
intermingle with other packets
refers to the 16th floor.
and if the network is overburdened,
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how do the DABBAWALAS achieve virtual SIX SIGMA competitive collaboration
QUALITY with ZERO DOCUMENTATION MTBSA is a remarkably flat
organization with just three tiers:
packets can collide with others, of repute since we are not working the governing council (president,
even get misdirected or lost in under anyone. Its our own business, vice president, general secretary,
cyberspace, and almost certainly we are partners, it confers a higher treasurer and nine directors), the
not arrive on time. status in society, says Sambhaji, mukadams and the dabbawalas.
another dabbawala. We earn Its first office was at Grant Road.
elegant logistics more than many padha-likha Today it has offices near most
In the dabbawalas elegant graduates, adds Khengle smugly. railway stations.
logistics system, using 25 kms of The proud owner of a BA Here nobody is an employer
public transport, 10 km of (Hons) degree, Raghunath Meghe, and none are employees. Each
footwork and involving multiple president of MTBSA, is a rare dabbawala considers himself a
transfer points, mistakes rarely graduate. He wanted to be a shareholder and entrepreneur.
happen. According to a Forbes chartered accountant but couldnt Surprisingly MTBSA is a
1998 article, one mistake for every complete the course because of fairly recent entity: the service is
eight million deliveries is the norm. family problems. Of his three believed to have started in the
How do they achieve virtual six children, his daughter is a graduate 1880s but officially registered
sigma quality with zero document- working at ICICI, one son is a itself only in 1968. Growth in
ation? For one, the system limits dabbawala and the younger son membership is organic and
the routing and sorting to a few is still studying. dependent on market conditions.
central points. Secondly, a simple Education till standard seven This decentralized organi-
color code determines not only is a minimum prerequisite. zation assumed its current form
packet routing but packet According to Meghe, This system in 1970, the most recent date of
prioritizing as lunches transfer accommodates those who didnt restructuring. Dabbawalas are
from train to bicycle to foot. or couldnt finish their studies. divided into sub-groups of fifteen to
Its obvious that those who score 25, each supervised by four muka-
who are the dabbawalas? good marks go for higher education dams. Experienced old-timers,
Descendants of soldiers of and not to do this job, but we the mukadams are familiar with
the legendary Maharashtrian have people who have studied up the colors and codings used in the
warriorking Shivaji, dabbawalas to standard twelve who couldnt complex logistics process.
belong to the Malva caste, and find respectable jobs. There are Their key responsibility is
arrive in Mumbai from places like only two women dabbawalas. sorting tiffins but they play a
Rajgurunagar, Akola, Ambegaon, Apart from commitment and critical role in resolving disputes;
Junnar and Maashi. We believe in dedication, each dabbawala, like maintaining records of receipts
employing people from our own any businessman, has to bring and payments; acquiring new
community. So whenever there some capital with him. The mini- customers; and training junior
is a vacancy, elders recommend a mum investment is two bicycles dabbawalas on handling new
relative from their village, says (approximately Rs4,000), a customers on their first day.
Madhba, a dabbawala. wooden crate for the tiffins Each group is financially
Farming earns a pittance, (Rs500), at least one white cotton independent but coordinates
compelling us to move to the city. kurta-pyjama (Rs600), and Rs20 with others for deliveries: the
And the tiffin service is a business for the trademark Gandhi topi. service could not exist otherwise.
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there is no ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE, MANAGERIAL Dadar. During these meetings,
LAYERS, or EXPLICIT CONTROL MECHANISMS particular emphasis is paid to
customer service. If a tiffin is lost
The process is competitive at the Service charges vary from or stolen, an investigation is
customers end and united at the Rs150 to Rs300 per tiffin per promptly instituted. Customers
delivery end. month, depending on location are allowed to deduct costs from
Each group is also responsible and collection time. Money is any dabbawala found guilty of
for day-to-day functioning. And, collected in the first week of every such a charge.
more important, there is no month and remitted to the If a customer complains of
organizational structure, mana- mukadam on the first Sunday. He poor service, the association can
gerial layers or explicit control then divides the money equally shift the customers account to
mechanisms. The rationale among members of that group. another dabbawala. No dabbawala
behind the business model is to It is assumed that one dabbawala is allowed to undercut another.
push internal competitiveness, can handle not more than 30-35 Before looking into internal
which means that the four Vile customers given that each tiffin disputes, the association charges
Parle groups vie with each other weighs around 2 kgs. And this is a token Rs100 to ensure that only
to acquire new customers. the benchmark that every group genuinely aggrieved members
tries to achieve. interested in a solution come to
building a clientele Typically, a twenty member it with their problems, and the
The range of customers includes group has 675 customers and officials time is not wasted on
students (both college and earns Rs1,00,000 per month petty bickering.
school), entrepreneurs of small which is divided equally even if
businesses, managers, especially one dabbawala has 40 customers learnings
bank staff, and mill workers. while another has 30. Groups Logistics is the new mantra for
They generally tend to be compete with each other, but building competitive advantage,
middle-class citizens who, for members within a group do not. the world over. Mumbais dabba-
reasons of economy, hygiene, Its common sense, points out walas developed their home
caste and dietary restrictions or one dabbawala. grown version long before the
simply because they prefer whole- One dabbawala could collect term was coined.
some food from their kitchen, 40 tiffins in the same time that it Their attitude of competitive
rely on the dabbawala to deliver takes another to collect 30. From collaboration is equally unusual,
a home cooked mid-day meal. his earnings of between Rs5,000 particularly in India. The operation
New customers are generally to Rs6,000, every dabbawala process is competitive at the
acquired through referrals. Some contributes Rs15 per month to customers end but united at the
are solicited by dabbawalas on the association. The amount is delivery end, ensuring their
railway platforms. Addresses are utilized for the communitys survival since a century and more.
passed on to the dabbawala upliftment, loans and marriage Is their business model worth
operating in the specific area, who halls at concessional rates. All replicating in the digital age is the
then visits the customer to problems are usually resolved by big question. n
finalize arrangements. Today association officials whose ruling
customers can also log onto the is binding.
website www.webrishi.com to Meetings are held office on
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