Presentation Topic: Logistic Management With Reference To Mumbai Dabbawala's

Presentation Topic:
Logistic Management with reference to Mumbai Dabbawala’s

Meaning of Logistic Management:
The term Logistics Management is that part of Supply Chain

Management that plans, implements, and controls the efficient, effective, forward, and reverse
flow and storage of goods, services, and related information between the point of origin and
the point of consumption in order to meet customers’ requirements.
Hungry kya? What would you like: pizza from the local Domino's (30 minute delivery) or a fresh,
hot meal from home? Most managers don't have a choice. It's 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,
managers and workers on every working day. At your desk. 12.30 pm on the dot. Served hot, of
course. And now you can even order through the Internet.
Introduction of Dabbawala:
A dabbawala , literally, box person, is a person in the Indian city

of Mumbai who is employed in a unique service industry whose primary business is collecting
the freshly cooked food in lunch boxes from the residences of the office workers (mostly in the
suburbs), delivering it to their respective workplaces and returning back the empty boxes by
using various modes of transport. "Tiffin" is an old-fashioned English word for a light lunch, and
sometimes for the box it is carried in. For this reason, the dabbawalas are sometimes
called Tiffin Wallahs.
Origin
Their origin dates back to the 1890s, a period when Bombay saw an influx of people from
various communities and regions of India migrating to the city to seek livelihood. According to
the Association, there were no canteens or fast-food centers then, and those who could not
take a packed lunch from home since they had to leave early invariably had to go hungry.
Besides, different communities had different tastes and preferences that could only be
satisfied by a home-cooked meal. Recognizing the need, a migrant from the Indian state of
Maharashtra called Mahadeo started the lunch delivery service with about 100 men, and the
rest is history.
The delivery chain
Instead of going home for lunch or paying for a meal in a café, many office workers have a
cooked meal sent either from their home, or sometimes from a caterer who delivers it to them
Essentially cooking and delivering the meal in lunch boxes and then having the lunch boxes
collected and re-sent the next day is done by this Dabbawala. The meal is cooked in the
morning and sent in lunch boxes carried by dabbawalas, who have a complex association and
hierarchy across the city. A collecting dabbawala, usually on bicycle, collects dabbas from
homes or from the dabba makers. The dabbas have some sort of distinguishing mark on them,
such as a color or symbol. 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 rail station to
unload the boxes and the building address where the box has to be delivered.
At each station, boxes are handed over to a local dabbawala, who delivers them. Here they
hardly get 30 seconds to load and and unload these wooden crates in the loacal trains. The
empty boxes, after lunch, are again collected and sent back to the respective houses. In short
these Dabbawalas literally work like the Internet.
Uninterrupted Service
The service is uninterrupted even on the days of severe weather such as Mumbai's
characteristic monsoons. The local dabbawalas at the receiving and the sending ends are
known to the customers personally, so that there is no question of lack of trust. Also, they are
well accustomed to the local areas they cater to, which allows them to access any destination
with ease. Occasionally, people communicate between home and work by putting messages
inside the boxes. However, this was more common before the accessibility of
instant telecommunications.
Bombay Dabbawalas go high-tech
The Bombay Tiffin Box Suppliers Association, an association of 5,000 lunch deliverymen i.e.
Dabbawalas in local parlance have finally started their own Web site and a text messaging
order taking system that enables them to bag orders real time instead of depending on
secondary sources like references or word-of-mouth. The world is moving ahead on
technology, So they decided to take advantage of technology to expand their business. Almost
all Dabbawalas would dont know to operated a computer and doesn't know the language of
text messaging also. They can just read the name, address and the telephone number of the
sender in an SMS (short messaging service). But they have to move with the technology
inorder expand their business.
Learnings and Conclusion
 Technology Is Always Not The Driving Factor

 Time Management
 Six Sigma (Forbes Global magazine awardd it Six Sigma certification in 2001. According
to Forbes the Dabbawalas work with 99.999999 percent accuracy)
 Commitment
 Politness
 Conflict Resolution
 Ethics
 Supply Chain Management
 Customer Saisfaction
Logistics is the new mantra for building competitive advantage, the world over. Mumbai's
dabbawalas developed their home-grown version long before the term was coined.
Their attitude of competitive collaboration is equally unusual, particularly in India. The

operation process is competitive at the customers' end but united at the delivery end, ensuring
their survival since a century and more. Is their business model worth replicating in the digital
age is the big question.

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Presentation Topic:

Logistic Management with reference to Mumbai Dabbawala’s

The term Logistics Management is that part of Supply Chain

A dabbawala , literally, box person, is a person in the Indian city

 Technology Is Always Not The Driving Factor

Their attitude of competitive collaboration is equally unusual, particularly in India. The

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