Question

Read the case study and answer the questions given at the end;

Dabbawallas are quite often described as the lifeline of the food chain in India’s business capital, Mumbai. Their job is to carry and deliver home cooked food to office workers. The food is collected from homes mostly from suburbs of Mumbai and delivered to the respective workers mostly working downtown. The food is typically carried in a “dabba” or lunch box and boxes are carried through a network of people, hand carts and local trains. The final delivery is manually made by the dabbawalla to the addressee on all working days. After consumption of food the empty boxes return to their origins by a journey in the reverse direction. The entire system is based on teamwork and meticulous timing. The supply chain starts with tiffin collected from homes between 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and are taken to the nearest railway station. At various intermediary stations, they are sorted out for area-wise distribution. The railway department has provided sorting areas on the platforms as well as special compartments on trains between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. During the sorting process each dabbawalla locates only those 40 tiffins under his charge, irrespective of the point of origin. In about 10-15 minutes, 40 tiffin are assembled and loaded onto a crate and by 12:30 p.m. they are delivered to offices. After the lunch hour the whole process move in the reverse direction and the tiffin return to the suburban homes by 6 p.m. The Dabbawallas also use a unique

coding system to identify the boxes from their destination and route, and this code is painted in red on the tiffin boxes. This system that started in 1880 became a registered association in 1965. The dabbawallas cover a distance of 60 km delivering 200,000 tiffins everyday completing their operations in about three hours. The average dabbawalla has studied only up to 8th standard. Their flawless service with an error rate of 1 in 16 million transactions makes them eligible for a Six Sigma rating in performance. The dabbawallas supply chain is quoted as one of the best examples in logistics that works without any IT support.

i. What are different stages and flows involve in supply chain of dabbawallas of Mumbai?

ii. Highlight important elements of supply chain management for the Dabbawallas of Mumbai.

iii. What type of supply chain strategy is suitable for food supply chain like Dabbawallas of Mumbai and Why?

Answer 1

1. The different stages and flows involved in the supply chain of dabbawallas of Mumbai are as follows:

· Collection stage: The collection of the tiffin boxes from the households in the allotted area to the hand carts and local trains

· Delivery stage: The segregation of the tiffin boxes or dabbas is done in the train itself. The tiffin boxes are delivered to the designated offices.

· Reverse Collection stage: After the lunch hours, the tiffin boxes are collected back and are loaded on local train

· Reverse delivery stage: The segregation of the boxes is again done in the train. The tiffin boxes are then loaded in designated carts and are delivered back to the households.

2. The important elements of supply chain management for the dabbawallas of Mumbai:

· Planning of the delivery process

· Coding and segregation of the dabbas

· Operations of the actual delivery

3. The food delivery industry of the dabbawallas is characterized by high demand in a stable market. The dabbawallas will be required to give service till the time, the office goers exist in the market. A continuous supply chain model will be the best in this regards. A continuous supply chain model will help the dabbawallas maintain smooth flow of operation as well as information. There is very less variation in the customer profile and service delivery is on standard lines.

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