OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

PROJECT
ON

PRESENTED TO
PROFESSOR RUPESH KUMAR SINHA
BY
BHAGIRADH AKUHTOTA
2015JULB01010

Table of Content
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INTRODUCTION
HISTORY
MISSION AND VISION
OPERATION MODULE
INVENTORY POLICY
DISTRIBUTION MODULE
OPERATION MANAGEMENT
CONCLUSION

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Introduction to Akshaya Patra

The Akshaya Patra Foundation is a not-for-profit organization headquartered in Bangalore,
India. The organization strives to fight issues like hunger and malnutrition in India. By

implementing the Mid-Day Meal Scheme in the Government schools and Government aided
schools, Akshaya Patra aims not only to fight hunger but also to bring children to school.
Since 2000, the organization has worked towards reaching more children with wholesome
food on every single school day.
Akshaya Patra is continuously leveraging technology to cater to millions of children. Its stateof-the-art kitchens have become a subject of study and they attracts curious visitors from
around the world.
In partnership with the Government of India and various State Governments, and inestimable
support from many businesses, philanthropic donors and well-wishers; we have grown from
our humble beginnings in the year 2000, serving just 1,500 children across 5 schools. Today
Akshaya Patra is the worlds largest (not-for-profit run) mid-day meal programme serving
wholesome food to over 1.4 million children from 10,845 schools across 10 states in India.
The Sanskrit term Akshaya Patra, Which means inexhaustible container, has its origins in
India famous epic Mahabharata.

History
It all began when his Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, was looking
outside a window one day in Mayapur, a village near Calcutta. He saw a group of children
fighting with stray dogs over scraps of food. From this simple, yet heart-breaking incident,
was born a determination that no child within a radius of ten miles from our centre should go
hungry. His inspiring resolve led to the making of The Akshaya Patra Foundation, as what it
is today.
In June 2000, The Akshaya Patra Foundation started the mid-day meal programme in
Bengaluru, Karnataka. The initial days of implementation were not smooth sailing for the
organisation. But soon came the helping hands of Mohandas Pai, who took the initiative of
donating the first vehicle to transport food to the schools; and Abhay Jain, who promised to
bring in more donors to contribute for the further expansion of the programme.The humble
beginnings of the Foundation started with serving of the mid-day meals to 1500 children
across five Government schools in Bengaluru.The programme embraced the vision that No
child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger.
Today, through the partnership with the Government of India and various State Governments,
as well as philanthropic donors; the organization runs the worlds largest mid-day meal
programme. Built on a public-private partnership, Akshaya Patra combines good
management, innovative technology and smart engineering to deliver a nutritious and
hygienic school lunch.
On November 28, 2001 the Supreme Court of India passed a mandate that:"Cooked mid-day
meal is to be provided in all the Government and Government-aided primary schools in all
the states." Akshaya Patra was also called upon to provide testimonies to the Supreme Court.

By the time the Ministry of Human Resource Development - Department of School Health
and Education extended its support to the initiative in 2003, Akshaya Patra was already
reaching out to 23,000 children.
Today, Akshaya Patra has kitchens in 24 locations spread across 10 states in India, a result of
the successful partnership with the Government of India, various State Governments and
generous supporters.

Vision and Mission

Vision-No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger
Mission- To feed 5 million children by 2020
MID-DAY MEALS
Akshaya Patra is an initiative of ISKCON Bangalore to provide mid-day meals in the rural
schools for the under privileged children and thus support their education. The vision
statement of Akshaya Patra states: No child in India shall be deprived of education because of
hunger.
In June 2000, the Akshayapatra Foundation started feeding 1500 children in Bangalore and
today it is reaching more than 1.3 million children every day. Akshaya Patra is currently
operating in 19 locations across 9 states of India and is conferred as the Worlds Largest
NGO-run Mid-Day Meal Program. The mission is to reach 5 million children by 2020.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation works in partnership with the Central and various State
Governments of India to provide mid-day meal to children studying in Government schools
and Government-aided schools. The Foundation runs its operations through two kitchen
models: Centralized Kitchens, which are suitable for urban and semi-urban locations, are
mostly mechanized and employs innovative t echnology to cook meals for thousands of
children within few hours. Decentralized Kitchens are set-up in areas that are not easily
accessible and employ women of that particular area for the cooking process.

Reach of Akshaya patra

Operation Module
Kitchens
Centralized Akshaya Patra Kitchens are located in:

Karnataka: Hare Krishna Hill (Bangalore), Vasanthapura (Bangalore), Bellary, Hubli,

Mangalore, Mysore

Andhra Pradesh: Hyderabad and Vishakapatnam

Gujarat: Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat

Assam: Guwahati

Chattisgarh: Bhilai

Orissa: Jagannath Puri, Nayagarh, Bhubaneshwar, Rourkela

Rajasthan: Jaipur, Baran and Nathadwara

Tamil Nadu: Chennai

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Uttar Pradesh: Vrindavana

The Akshaya Patra Foundation operates in 24 locations across 10 States in India

Centralised kitchens are large kitchen units that have the capacity to typically cook up to
100,000 meals. These kitchens serve a set of schools located around the unit. They are
automated and thus ensure hygiene during the cooking processes. On the other hand, in
locations where factors like difficult geographical terrain and improper road connectivity do
not support construction of large infrastructure, the decentralised kitchen format is the ideal
solution. These kitchens are run by the Women Self-Help Groups (SHGs) under the guidance
and supervision of Akshaya Patras kitchen process and operations module.
Akshaya Patra Kitchens have adopted Six Sigma Methodologies
Cooking in the centralized units begins in the early morning. All kitchens run by the
organisation follow a scheduled menu. All the centralised kitchens are equipped with
cauldrons, trolleys, rice chutes, dal/sambar tanks, cutting boards, knives and other similar
equipment that are sanitised before usage. The North Indian kitchens are equipped with rice
cauldrons and dal cauldrons. Each rice cauldron has a capacity of at least 500 litres; and each
dal cauldron has the capacity to cook 1,200 litres to 3,000 litres of dal. As roti is an integral
part of the North Indian menu, the kitchens are equipped with roti making machines, which
have the capacity to roll out up to 200,000 rotis from 6,000 kgs of wheat flour.
The South Indian kitchens are equipped with rice cauldrons and sambar cauldrons. Each rice
cauldron has a capacity of at least 500 litres; each sambar cauldron has the capacity to cook
1,200 litres to 3,000 litres of sambar. All the vessels are of stainless steel 304 food grade
material.
Quality Assurance during procurement of raw materials
The SQMS process covers sub processes like Supplier Selection, Supplier Qualification,
supplier Rating etc. to ensure that the right and best raw materials are procured. Our Quality
Control process ensures that raw materials are accepted only after thorough Quality
Inspection in order to meet all the requirements of our Raw Material Specifications, which is
generally taken and adopted from Food Safety Standards Act 2006 (FSSA).

Inventory
Storage, Handling, Preservation of raw materials
Fresh vegetables are procured on a daily basis. After procurement, sorting of vegetables is
done to retain the best quality. All the vegetables are cleaned with potable water and sanitised
before the cutting process. Cold storage is used to store ready-to-cook cut vegetables to retain
freshness. Rice is supplied by the Food Corporation of India (FCI). Before the cooking
process, the rice is machine-cleaned and washed thoroughly. In order to ensure all the raw
materials are fresh, all the kitchens follow the FIFO (First In First Out)and FEFO (First
Expiry First Out) methods while issuing the raw material for production.
By doing so, the kitchens are able to properly identify, store and retrieve the raw materials in
an appropriate manner.
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Quality and Safety during cooking

All the kitchens of Akshaya Patra follow a standard process for preparing the mid-day meals.
This process is charted out to ensure hygiene and quality of the cooked meal and also to
adhere to the food safety standards. All the cooking equipment like cauldrons, trolleys, rice
chutes and sambar/dal tanks, cutting boards, knives etc. are sterilised using steam before the
cooking process begins. The vessels used in the kitchens are made of stainless steel of 304
grade and is best for cooking and handling food.
The decentralised kitchen units are equipped with necessary cooking equipment like chapati
pans, cooking vessels for rice and dal and vessels for transporting the cooked mid-day meals
to the schools. Personal hygiene and Food Safety trainings are provided regularly to the
kitchen staff to ensure hygiene standards are met.
All the kitchens have well trained Cooks and Production Supervisors to manage and
supervise the production. Critical Control Points (CCPs) like cooking temperature are
checked and recorded at periodic intervals to ensure the right quality of the meal.
To ensure food quality is maintained, Quality Check is done by the Quality Officers in each
kitchen.

Distribution
Dual-Pronged Distribution Strategy
Akshaya Patra first provided food to school children through a centralized kitchen in
Bangalore, a bustling urban center. Using a hub-and-spoke model, they cooked mass
quantities of food and distributed smaller amounts to individual schools in the surrounding
slum and village areas.
As Akshaya Patra expanded services to the rural districts, a centralized model proved
inefficient. Because of the dispersed geography of the villages in the rural districts, Akshaya
Patra designed a decentralized model in which they built small kitchens to serve the local
school children in each village. Through this two-pronged distribution strategy, Akshaya
Patra was able to design services to fit the contrasting needs of the urban and rural regions.
Centralized Model: Operations in Bangalore
The Bangalore kitchen was designed by a team of expert engineers, and many modifications
to the original design were made as the organization grew in scope and scale. The Bangalore
kitchen was initially intended to feed 1,500 students. By 2007, the kitchen was feeding
145,000 children daily. As Akshaya Patra increased the number of children fed, it increased
the capacity of the kitchen. According to the operations manager, Bangalore was an evolved
kitchen which had exceeded its expectations for growth. Changes to the kitchen were made
on an as-needed basis. The organization repeatedly stressed the importance of process,
design, and high quality of food. They determined that the organization must have replicable,
hygienic kitchens that would be productive and process oriented.

Supply chain
The daily meals included rice, lentils, vegetables, spices, and curds (yogurt). In the urban
areas, vegetables were procured from local markets through an ongoing relationship with
third-party vendors. With nutritional balance always in mind, menus varied to incorporate
whatever was plentiful at the markets, and thus less expensive. In the Bangalore kitchen, for
example, curds were sourced from two different suppliers, with 3,5004,000 tons of curd
received and distributed daily. The Bangalore storage room was able to store up to three days
worth of fresh food and substantially more dry goods such as rice and lentils.
Challenges with the supply chain
In many locations, Akshaya Patra received rice as a subsidy from the central government,
which it reported was of poor quality. Rice from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) was
sold by farmers to the FCI through a middleman. Since price was set by weight, the
middlemen often added foreign objects to increase tonnage, including stones, nails and metal.
Akshaya Patra believed that within the supply chain, these objects were added to the product
in order to maximize profit and called this practice a very open secret. Akshaya Patra
thoroughly cleaned the government rice by using a destoning machine to separate the rice
from other non-food products (see Exhibit 5) and often found that 20% of each bag of rice
was unusable.10 In the past, Akshaya Patra had avoided poor quality rice by exchanging the
government-issued rice for that which was available in the market and of higher quality,
paying cash for the difference in price. However, new regulations prevented them from
continuing this practice.
Food Packing and Transportation
The cooked food is packed in steam sterilised vessels. We use specially designed and
customized transport vehicles to deliver food which is packed in stainless steel 304 grade
vessels. These vehicles are steam sterilised before the loading process. These vehicles use a
puffed body to reduce the temperature loss and a honeycomb structure to hold the vessels
upright and keep the freshness of the cooked meal intact till it is served to the children.
Delivery
Methods like Logistic charting for route optimisation, GPRS to track the delivery vehicles for
safety and on-time delivery are gradually being adopted and implemented in the kitchens.
Post Delivery Process
In order to consistently maintain quality of the meal, we take feedbacks from schools on a
daily basis while delivering the meal. The Quality Officers in the kitchens review the
feedback and initiate or trigger appropriate corrective or improvement actions to improve the
quality and delivery of food. We also circulate Dos and Donts pamphlets to all schools on
a regular basis for creating awareness on food safety and hygiene while serving the mid-day
meals.
Audit & Review mechanisms play a key role in monitoring the key processes & systems and
their performance. So, we have institutionalised Good Manufacturing Process (GMP)
Monthly Audits, Surprise Audits on Food Safety & Quality, to name a few. Quality Metrics
Performance is reviewed on a monthly basis. Detailed Customer Satisfaction Surveys are
done by the Quality Staff at periodic intervals apart from the day-to-day feedback we take
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during the delivery of food. In certified kitchens, ISO 22000 Internal Audits are done twice a
year by qualified Internal Auditors led by Quality & FSMS Managers, and our Certification
body does the surveillance audits twice a year. The data from all the respective audits are
reviewed and appropriate improvement or corrective actions are taken. All actions are further
monitored till effective implementation.
Continual Improvement methods
As we aim to maintain and better our services by sustaining the quality of the mid-day meals
we provide, there is a need for continual improvement. We need to advance the performance
of various processes continuously so that every cycle of improvement leads to the next level
of achievement. We adopted a holistic approach and designed a programme called Akshaya
Pragathi. As a part of the programme we are adopting and implementing Kaizen, CI Projects
and Six Sigma methodologies to ensure and make every member a part of these initiatives.
Training is an integral part of the Continual Improvement Programme. The Financial Year
2012-13 saw training on 5S, GMP, Lean and Kaizen, and ISO 22000 Awareness for kitchen
employees across all locations for more than 6,000 man hours. The Quality Department aims
to conduct 15,000 man hours of training on similar topics in the Financial Year 2013-14
Akshaya patra Kitchen: A beacon of quality
The Akshaya Patra Foundation operates based on a well-crafted module that puts hygiene and
quality on top of its priorities. We also believe that eating is not only for nutrition, it is also
for taste. We want children to relish what they eat and hence, we prepare a different dish
every day to break the monotony.
Lets see what goes into making every meal completely safe, nutritious and tasty at the same
time.
Food Safety Management Systems
Akshaya Patras centralised kitchens are equipped to prepare meals for large scale feeding. A
strict kitchen process is observed which includes certain mandatory routines to be followed
by each member of the kitchen staff. Food Safety Management Systems are implemented in
all the kitchens be it centralised or decentralised, in order to handle, prepare and deliver food.
Food Safe Stainless Steel
The cooking in centralised kitchens begins very early in the morning. All kitchens run by the
organisation follow a scheduled menu. All cauldrons, trolleys, rice chutes, dal/sambar tanks,
cutting boards, knives and other instruments in these units are sanitised before usage every
single day. All vessels used in the kitchens are made of food safe stainless steel of 304 Grade
which is capable of enduring high levels of temperature for long intervals.
Raw Materials
The raw materials that are procured are of the best quality and to ensure this robust Supplier
Quality Management System (SQMS) is implemented. This system further consists of a

range of examination processes like Supplier Selection, Supplier Qualification, Supplier

Rating and so on.
Hygiene
In order to make sure that none of the personal hygiene practises are missed out before the
cooking begins, each staff member follows a routine hygiene chart. Daily shower, use of
clean uniforms, caps to cover the hair, face masks to cover the mouth and nose area, gloves,
gumboots, other protective gears and hand sanitisation are mandatory.
Recipes
Standardisation of our recipes is an important factor while maintaining high levels of
nutrition along with taste. In order to achieve these levels, a well-structured Quality
Assurance programme is implemented at all stages of Operations Pre-Production,
Production and Post-Production
Quality Control
The Quality Control process in the organisation accepts raw materials only after thorough
Quality Inspection so as to meet all the requirements of our Raw Material Specifications
which are generally adopted from Food Safety Standards Act 2006 (FSSA). Twelve of the
centralised kitchens are ISO 22000:2005 certified and the remaining kitchens are in the
process of this certification.

OPERATION MANAGEMENT
Akshaya Patra is a non-profit organisation that operates on a Public-Private-Partnership
model. As an implementing partner of the Mid-Day Meal Scheme, there is continuous
support from the Government of India, the various State Governments and associated
organisations. This has enabled the programme to grow from feeding 1,500 children in the
year 2000 to 1.4 million children in 2014.
Akshaya Patra, with part support from the Government, also depends on corporate funds,
philanthropic donors, volunteers and well-wishers for managing such massive operation. The
nitty-gritties of the operations include the technological innovations, quality standards,
delivery vehicles and interacting with various stakeholders, to name a few.
The organisation is highly transparent and makes available not only the financial information
but also intellectual property to the public. The organisation is of the belief that there is a dire
need for the operations of Akshaya Patra to be replicated so that it realises the vision that No
child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger. And hence make available
all information to organisations, Government and other enthusiasts.
Management and funding
Despite growing in scale, TAPFs seven founders maintained the original Board of Trustees
consisting of three volunteers and four senior executives (Exhibit 3). The Board provided
strategic advice and worked on performance improvement. Although headquartered in
Bangalore, it made operational decisions based on reports received from the managers at each
location.
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Akshaya Patra was funded through a combination of government subsidies and private
donations. The organization received:
2.6 kilograms of rice or wheat per child for students in class 1 to 7 + excise duty exemption
from the central government of India
Rs 1.31 for students in class 1 to 7 state government of Karnataka
Rs 1 for students in class 1 to 5 state government of Uttar Pradesh
Rs 1.50 for students in class 1 to 5 + sales & road tax exemption state government of
Rajasthan
Rs 1.65 for students in class 1 to 5 + sales tax exemption state government of Orissa
In addition, the government also gave 100 percent Income Tax Exemption for donations
made to the Akshaya Patra program under section 35 AC/80GGA (bb) of the Indian tax code.
The remainder of the funding came from corporate and individual donor contributions. By
March 2007, there were over 16,000 private donors.
While funding was coordinated out of the headquarters in Bangalore, the organization hoped
to widen the footprint of its fundraising base. As it expanded to additional cities throughout
India, Akshaya Patras aim was that each location becomes self-sustaining. In addition,
Akshaya Patra initiated fund-raising efforts in the U.S., with a particular focus on IndianAmerican donors. Maintaining cost efficiencies
When Akshaya Patra first began serving the rural areas, it cost 10 rupees per day to feed each
child. Comparatively, the cost was six rupees with the centralized, urban model, which
included raw materials, labor, distribution, and administrative overhead. Increased
transportation costs associated with the lack of road infrastructure and the dispersed locations
of schools made the decentralized model less cost-effective than the centralized model.
Additionally, Akshaya Patra was unable to achieve economies of scale through vendor
relationships and administration. Site selection
Schools were selected based on demonstrated need and physical location. With a centralized
model of food preparation and delivery in the urban areas, schools that were close to each
other allowed more efficient delivery of meals. It also improved transportation times when
delivering food. In the rural areas, few schools were located nearby one another. Distance
and location prohibited delivery from a central location, and thus were not primary factors in
rural school selection.

CONCLUSION
In keeping with the principle of transparency, the Foundation complies with the International
Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and with the Indian Accounting Standards issued by
the Institute of Chartered accountants of India (ICAI) for reporting its financials year-on-year.
Akshaya Patra publishes its Annual Report with audited financial reports and makes it
available for all its stakeholders, at the end of every financial year. With a centralized model
feeding urban children, and a decentralized model feeding rural children, the dual-pronged
strategy presented a variety of challenges to overcome. Centralized distribution model the
centralized kitchen model had the benefits of scale and the best promise for being able to feed
the largest number of children for the lowest cost. Akshaya Patra achieved much success
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through the centralized model, and had recently invested in a new centralized state-of-the-art
kitchen in Hubli. However, they still faced many challenges, including distribution issues,
maintaining continual improvement, and creating a flexible standardized model while also
allowing for local customization of labor needs and food preferences. Worker retention was
low in some cities as workers trained in their kitchens were often recruited to work in highend hotels where they would receive a better wage. In addition, as plans for construction of
new kitchens developed, they needed a replicable model while also allowing room for
improvement. Akshaya Patra also considered future capacity needs and wondered if they
should build each kitchen for the current capacity allotted, or with room for increased
capacity, on the assumption of additional funding in the future. Feeding India's
Schoolchildren 12 Decentralized distribution model the rural areas were best targeted through
the decentralized model, but Akshaya Patra questioned whether they could achieve the
necessary scale to make a difference in these areas. Employee recruitment, particularly of
trusted supervisors who would not fall prey to the corruption schemes that were so prevalent
in India, was a further limiting factor. Furthermore, localized training of village women was
extremely labor intensive. The trustees considered expanding to a trainingbased model, where
Akshaya Patra would host 50-100 rural women in a central training location for a 15-day
intensive instruction course in proper food preparation, hygiene, and accounting.This option
had the benefits of being able to reach more people, but did not solve the problems of quality
assurance, corruption, and theft.
As the Trustees prepared for their meeting, they contemplated how best to balance these
challenges. With millions of children still hungry and out of school in India, the need for
programs like Akshaya Patra was great. The Trustees of the organization were committed to
finding ways to serve more children every day, both urban and rural. The possibilities seemed
endless, but funding was not, and they knew it was time to make some decisions.

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