|The Fantastic Dabbawalas! |
|PF1101: Fundamentals of Project Management
1) Introduction
The Dabbawala when translated to English, means “lunch box delivery man”. It is a highly specialized service in Mumbai, which is over a century old and is integral to the culture of this city. Also, the system of the Dabbawalas has became a well-known model example for banking and consultant firms.
The idea of Dabbawalas started in 1890s. At that time, India was being colonized and the British colonial masters could not get used to the local food. Hence, there was a need for the delivery of home-cooked food to the colonial masters and a group of locals decided to initiate the food delivery service chain. Eventually, MTBSA (Mumbai Tiffin Bow Suppliers Association) was established. Currently, there is an estimated number of only about 5,000 Dabbawalas delivering approximately 200,000 lunch boxes per day!
2) How do Dabbawalas operate?
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1. Every morning the Dabbawalas collect the lunchboxes from households and mark it with a unique code. Every Dabbawala has to assemble at his/her reported collection point at 9.30am sharp. 2. They then gather at an aggregation point to sort the boxes and group them into carriages 3. The second Dabbawala then marks the carriages to clearly specify the destination local rail station and the building address to which the dabbas have to be delivered. 4. A third Dabbawala then boards the train with the carriages and drops them at each station 5. The
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