AN ENTREPRENURIL SUCCESS STORY

                HUNGRY? Would you like a fresh, hot meal from home?  Most manager don’t have that choice it’s either a sandwich,

A pizza or a trip to restaurant. Unless you live in Mumbai, that is, where a small army of “dabbawala” picks up 175,000 lunches

From home and delivers them to harried students, managers and workers every working day. At your desk. 12.30 pm on the dot.

Served hot, of course. And now you can even order over the internet.

THE MUMBAI TIFFEN BOX SUPPLIERS ASSOCIAATION IS A STREAMLINE 120-YEAR-OLD ORGANIZATION with 4500 semiliterate members providing a quality

Door-to-door service to a large and loyal customer base.

                             Who could speak better than them on managerial skills? These management gurus are not business tycoons or managers of a Multinational company: but they are not lesser than them. An organization with SIX SIGMA and ISO 9001:2000 certification, fans like prince Charles and Richard Branson

(Of virgin Airways), Ripley’s believe it or not and Guinness book of world Records registration.

Low error rate                                        

Dabba system (lunch box distribution) in Mumbai is a perfect example of low error rate, customer satisfaction, team work, time management, discipline.

The unique and highly efficient 117-year old logistic system has an error rate of one in 16 million transactions.

Team work

                The entire system depends on team work and meticulous timing. Tiffin boxes are collected from homes between 7 am and 9 am, and taken to the nearest railway station. At various intermediary stations, they are hauled onto platforms and sorted out for area-wise distribution, so the single Tiffin box could change hands

Three to four times in the course of its daily journey.

Discipline

& Time management

                                They are extremely particular about the time and realize the value of every second in the value chain. So much so the prince Charles wanted to meet them. They give him a precious time slot so that the thousands others would not have to skip their lunch.

Customer satisfaction

                Around 5000 Dabbawalas  in Mumbai serves 2 lakh customer everyday by delivering customers homemade lunch at their work places before their lunch time

And giving the lunch boxes back to their residence in the evening.