Introduction : Mumbai Dabbawala

Who are they ?

A group of person 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 the railway trains, and returns the empty boxes back 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.
About
Started in Mumbai in 1890 , consisting of 100 dabbawalas
Presently dabbawalas are about 5000 in number and deliver approximately 200,000 tiffin boxes every
day, which is 400,000 transactions per day.
The total area coverage is around 60Kms and avg time taken for each end to end transaction is 3 hours
Efficiency rate is 99.9999% ( Six Sigma Performance ) that mean errors occurs once in two months, i.e. 1
failure in 16 million transactions.
Their organisation structure is consisting of Executive Committee ( 5 members ), team of 20 -25 headed
by a group leader, and each individual dabbawala work load is roughly 30 tiffin box

Need of dabbawala
To deliver home made food
Some person dont like stale food
Some person dont like unhygienic food
Customer profile of dabbawala
11%
15%
36%
38%
Customer Ratio
Student Businessman Govt. Office Private Sect
Working Model
The working model is based on Baton relay system & Hub and Spoke arrangement model
The lunch is packed in a box that is color coded by customers home.
The packed lunch box is transported using a combination of different transport mode i.e. bicycles, local
trains and foot walk.
Entire city is divided into several areas, each area having a specific box exchange point
Those boxes are handed over to other team workers at different junctions.
From these junctions, the tiffin box reaches its destination based on the code written on the box top.

Box coding
3
VLP
E
9

A
I

1
2

Origin railway station
(VLP = Vileparle
station)
Area to be delivered
within Church gate Zone
(9 mean Nariman point)
Building to be delivered
with in Nariman point
( AI = Air India Building)
Floor to be delivered
in Air India building ,
i.e. 12
th
Floor
Destination railway
station
3 means church gate
station
Area collected from
within Villeparle
E means hanuman
road
SWOT analysis of dabbawala
Strength
Simplicity in
service with
innovative service
Co-ordination,
team spirit & time
management
Low operation
cost
Customer
satisfaction
Weakness
High dependability
on local train
Funds for the
association
Limited access to
education
Opportunity
Tie up with caters to
serve verity of meals
Opportunity of
expenses of service
in Mumbai metro and
BRTs (Bus Rapid
transit)
Generating revenue
by promoting other
number of brands
Expansion of service
to other cities.
Booking of service
through internet and
SMS

Threats
Indirect threats by
fast food chains and
hotels
Food courts at malls
Flexi timing / work
from home culture
Catering services
offering Tiffin
services
Paper food voucher
and smart cards