#dabbawallahs

Dabba - Bombay / Mumbai - Maharashtra

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A dabbawala is generally out on the busy streets of the Mumbai by 9 in the morning with his bicycle which is very heavy as it has another kind of carrier that has been designed with extra iron to bear loads of weight. By 10:30 AM he collects all the Tiffin from various locations and delivers them to the respective offices latest by 1PM.

A disappearance of the dabbawallas. I still can't believe they keep track of all of this with 99.9% efficiency rates. Remarkable.

Reblogged from 37 signals: Every day, approximately 4,000 dabbawallahs deliver 160,000 home-cooked lunches from the kitchens of suburban wives and mothers direct to Mumbai’s workers in “the world’s most ingenious meal distribution system.” Despite the lack of fuel, computers, or modern technology involved, a tiffin goes astray only once every two months. So for every six million tiffins delivered, only one fails to arrive. That’s why Forbes awarded the dabbawallahs a 6 Sigma performance rating (a term used in quality assurance if the percentage of correctness is 99.9999999 or more). ----- By the way, most of these amazing men are illiterate.  If you don't have the time to read the whole article, two reasons were cited for the reason of the success: enthusiasm for work (they value enthusiasm over experience) and they abandon bad customers. Amazing huh?

Dabbawallas are food entrepreneurs in Mumbai (found elsewhere too) that delivers home made food in a stack of containers held together by a handle called tiffins. Read this great post about the reason dabbawallas get a six sigma rating from Forbes. Interesting read and view of the video in this post.