Do you know, the famous Dabbawala system is 125-year-old system of lunchbox delivery, it operates only in Mumbai and acts as a connect between homes and offices of lacs of people.
This system started in the hills of Dharmashala and all the way travelled to the heart of Mumbai. It was started by the then 30-year-old Mahadev Havaji Bachche, a farmer by profession.
Dabbawala’s practices supply chain in a very efficient way by moving daily more than 1,75,000 lunches through approximately 4,500-5,000 dabbawala’s across Mumbai. According to a report by The New York Times in 2007, the industry of the dabbawalas continues to grow at a rate of 5 to 10 percent per year. The food-delivery system has a surprisingly high rate of accuracy, so much so that their error rates are 1 in 8 million only. Out of the 260,000 transactions in six hours every day for 52 weeks of a year, the dabbawalas are six sigma compliant for their remarkable accuracy
So, what are these dabbawala’s doing right? Are you practicing what the dabbawala’s are ?
Few things that stands out are;
- The over usage of the technology: Mostly organisation thinks that their technologies can solve most of the issues. But that’s not true. Most of the issues are aligned with either the process or the execution or the expectations. which needs human skills to solve and not the technologies.
- Focus on the entire chain than just some specific aspects: Don’t just focus on the individual aspects of your supply, focus on the entire system, products/services and information and the chances for the success will be much higher.
- Communicate every bits of the information: Make sure that any and every details regarding your supply chain is being communicated with your peers.
- Don’t make it complex: Don’t make it complex by adding extraneous value. Understand what your customers want and focus solely on that.
