Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
ON
“A CASE STUDY ON DABBAWALA OF
MUMBAI”
RESEARCH SUBMITTED TO THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR HOTEL
MANAGEMENT & CATERING TECHNOLOGY, NOIDA
& INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY, NEW DELHI
BY
SANSKAR KESARWANI
TANMAY HITAISHY
The Dabbawala, (one who carries the box), in the Indian city of Mumbai. Carries and
delivers freshly made food from customer’s home in a lunch box (Dabba) and deliver it to
offices.
Wherever you may be staying in Mumbai, in whichever corner you may be having your
work-place in this metropolis of one crore plus population, you never ever fail to receive
your home food in time at the lunch hour in your work-place!! Thanks to the network of
the tiffin-patiwalas that has been functioning in an amazing way for the last 120 years and
recognized as the best case of network management in the world even by the
management gurus.
or bhabhi at home with all care and love for the taste,
Attired in the most typical dress composed of half sleeved open shirt, pyjama or pant, a
'Gandhi cap' covering the head, Kolhapuri Chappals in the feet, this Tiffinwala carries a
wooden case on his head with 20 to 25 tiffins in it. If you see a man with a fast pace of
2
walk, not affected by the dense traffic during the rush hours, do recognize him without
About 10 to 15 years ago, it was rather impossible to think about Mumbai sans the
Dibbawala . The most prolific column-writer, who Mumbaikars lost forever just a few
days ago, Behram 'Busybee' Contractor, wrote some time in the past referring to these
If you are a new entrant to Mumbai and if you try to board any local train during the rush
hours between 9 AM and 11 AM in the morning towards South Mumbai and during 5 PM
to 8 PM in the evening towards the suburbs, rest assured, you are likely to faint. Leave
aside boarding the train, even seeing it may meet the same result. But, in this unparalleled
density of traffic, this is the daily encounter for this stoutly built serious looking sober
Dibbawala. Fortunately the railways have given a special reserved compartment to them
next to the guard's cabin on certain suburban trains. Don't be surprised if you happen to
peep into this compartment to see as many as 700 to 800 Tiffin’s!! Humans too.
The Dabbawallas business was founded by Mahadeo Havaji Bacche who inaugurated
TheNutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust´ with a handful of illiterate employees andwithout any
capital investment. "Tiffin" was a nostalgic term used by British for "light food".
However, people call them Dabbawallas as they carry a "Dabba" meaning "box". Almost
5000Dabbawalas deliver and collect more than 200,000 lunch boxes very day, across the
entire Mumbai. The most interesting fact is that these people do not use any modern technology, yet they
have never failed to deliver the lunch boxes on time - irrespective of weather, riots, floods, etc. with an
error coefficient of one in 16,000,000 boxes. This is more than Six Sigma- a quality that most
businesses strive to achieve. A study conducted by Six Sigma concludes that excellent
3
efficiency and
reliability is achieved
by the Dabbawallas
through competitive
collaboration with
efficient management
of logistics. Though the work sounds simple, it is actually a highly specialized trade that
is over a century old and which has become integral to Mumbai's culture.Mumbai Tiffin
Box Suppliers Association is a 120 year old organization operating in Mumbai city, India.
In Mumbai most of the population travel everyday for about 100 kilometers to reach their
work place, and since they tend toleave their residence early in the morning it is hard for
their family members to prepare lunch during such a time, and even if they do prepare it
is very much hard to carry it in the local train since it is too crowded. So it makes sense
for them to hire Dabbawalas to deliver the lunch box at their work place in the afternoon,
fresh and hot. The activity of the Dabbawalas involve collection, sorting, transferring and
delivering the lunch boxes at customers work place and again the process is repeated in
reverse way. They have to deliver 2,00,000 such lunch boxes everyday, and they have
been awarded Six Sigma for their operation, which means that they make one error in
every 16 million transactions. This puts them in the list with MNC’s like GE and
Motorola.
It may sound simple, but it’s not.It is actually a highly specialized trade that has evolved
in its current form over a century and has become integral to Mumbai’s culture. There are
4
employees about 5000 in number and deliver approximately 200,000 tiffin boxes every
day.
It all started about 125 years back when a Parasi banker wanted to have home cooked
food regularly in office and gave this responsibility to the first ever Dabbawala. Other
people also liked the idea and the demand for Dabba delivery soared.
It was all informal and individual effort in the beginning, but visionary
MahadeoHavajiBachche saw the opportunity and started the lunch delivery service in its
As the city grew, the demand for dabba delivery grew too. Forefathers had the vision to
create the Dabba coding system that’s going on strong even today.
The Coding system evolved through various stages with time. In the beginning it was
simple colour coding. Now Mumbai is a widely spread metro with 3 local train routes.
5
LITERATURE REVIEW
Mumbai – the city of dreams and desires has been making a course for progress since the
Britishhad developed the key system of lanes, railroad and structures. Right when the
Britishruled India, the prime business centers were stronghold and billard dock Regions.
These were the spots that have housed banks government workplaces, security houses,
shipping organizations and other current head office, soon private states moved further
far from the fortress zone area and hereafter a significant measure of office goers started
suspecting that its difficult to go home for their lunch from work passing on lunch boxes
In 1890, a Parsi broker working in ballard dock utilized a young fellow, from Pune local,
to bring his lunch ordinary. An ever increasing number of individuals joined the gathering
through referrals and soon it was taken as a genuine business. As the business developed
the tiffin-conveying business person needed to contract all the more assistance from his
town.
This prompted the releasing of an armed force that even today in the 21st century serves a
Today, 5000 dabbawalas crosswise over Mumbai arrange with each other for getting and
conveying the tiffins for more than 2,00,000 Mumbaites regular in 3 hour time span,
through 60kms of open transport and in extremely uncommon case a tiffin may miss
being on its proprietors lunch table at the lunch hour. The association is extremely a
they are a definitive expert of coordinations administration. They have been rehearsing
6
center point and talked framework, without a moment to spare strategies, no stock
approach and inventory network administration standards even before these terms were
even instituted. The association take a shot at a 'work is venerate' logic, which is the
customary Indian practice as a result of which they are known as fuel providers and if the
nearby prepare is the life saver of the city then the dabbawalas are the nourishment line.
7
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
8
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
a) RESEARCH DESIGN:
A research design is the master plan or model for the conduct of formal investigation and
needs for solving the problem. It decides the source of information and methods for
gathering the data. A questionnaire and other forms are tested to use the collection of
Good research design ensures that the information obtained is relevant to the research
question and that it was collected by objectives. Since research design is simply the
framework of plan for a study, it should be used as a guide in collecting and analyzing the
The major objective of the descriptive research is to describe something – usually market
features or functions. It requires a clear specification of the who, what, when, where,
why, & the way (the 6 Ws) of the research. Our 6 Ws are:
commodity?
When: When should the information be obtained from the respondent?
Where: Where the respondents should be contacted to obtain the required
Information?
Why: Why are we obtaining the information from the respondents?
Way: In what way we are going to obtain the information from the respondents?
9
b) SAMPLING TECHNIQUES
The samples were selected through
Purposive Sampling: The first phase of selecting the sample was done by this method as
sample into different groups called strata. Here one stratum is the consumer and staff of
Primary Source.
Secondary Source.
10
d) TYPE OF DATA COLLECTION
The present study was designed to assess the case study of Mumbai Dabbawala.
i. LOCALE OF STUDY: The study was carried out with Mumbai Dabbawal
association members.
ii. CRITERIA FOR SELECTION: The following criteria were observed for the
Easy accessibility- due to similarity of the work area of half of the total
population.
Questionnaire method was chosen for fulfillment of basic objective. The primary
Internet
There are number of tools that could be used for collecting data depending on the nature
of study. Questionnaire- cum- interview method was employed for collection of data.
11
FINDINGS
2. Corporates and scholars ought to make note of their working by keeping in mind
the end goal to comprehend their one of a most unique structure and process.
3. Today the Dabbawallas have respected the utilization of web innovation just to
4. Numerous fast food chains and lodgings in the city will dependably be rivaling
never emerge.
12
LIMITATIONS
This report incorporates sincere efforts to submit the best possible dossier on the topic
assigned because no study can be perfect. There are bound to be limitations that I
The data used in most part of the report is secondary data, it has inherent discrepancy.
Some of the respondents were not completely aware of its products and track record.
13
BIBLIOGRAPHY
WEBSITE:
www.myDabbawala.com
www.expertbase.org
www.scribd.com
www.mumbaidabbawala.org
www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com
www.Wiki/Dabbawala.org
INTERVIEW:
Dabbawalas
Book:
14