{"id":979,"date":"2012-12-21T18:17:27","date_gmt":"2012-12-21T12:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/?p=979"},"modified":"2012-12-21T18:42:25","modified_gmt":"2012-12-21T13:12:25","slug":"the-6%cf%83-operation-of-the-mumbai-dabbawala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/2012\/12\/the-6%cf%83-operation-of-the-mumbai-dabbawala\/","title":{"rendered":"The 6sigma operation of the Mumbai Dabbawala&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Enough has been written about the efficient operation of the Mumbai <em>Dabbawalas<\/em> and how their <em>dabba<\/em> (tiffin\/lunch box) delivery is 6sigma certified thanks to the error less operation they carry out.<\/p>\n<p>There is a very bad TEDxSSN talk as well.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/N25inoCea24\" height=\"315\" width=\"420\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I always wondered how the semi literate villagers could gain this efficiency in operation till I discovered that the accuracy of their entire operation relied upon <strong>trust<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Yes there is a complex and efficient coding system. But this system was meant when for a time when there were individual houses on a street in Mumbai or when a few houses in a <em>chawl<\/em> sent out <em>dabbas<\/em>. Not the towering skyscrapers as now.<\/p>\n<p>See the coding system in slides 20-21 in this presentation: <a style=\"margin: 12px auto 6px auto; line-height: normal; text-decoration: underline;\" title=\"View The Dabbawallas Sep06 on Scribd\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/20710297\/The-Dabbawallas-Sep06\">The Dabbawallas Sep06<\/a><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"doc_16118\" src=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/embeds\/20710297\/content?start_page=1&amp;view_mode=scroll&amp;access_key=key-27ye0woo6lcff3f3q1i0\" height=\"315\" width=\"420\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-auto-height=\"false\" data-aspect-ratio=\"1.33333333333333\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The coding system essentially ensures that the <em>dabba<\/em> reached the destination building reception \/ floor for lunch and back at source street. But at both the end points there is a huge qualitative factor that is not accounted for. The owner has to identification his\/her own <em>dabba<\/em> and pick it up. So ultimately the <em>dabbawala<\/em> <strong>trusts<\/strong> that the originator and end user is notpicking up some one elses <em>dabba<\/em>. So much for process excellence certification!<\/p>\n<p>ps: By the way, almost all the presentations on the web are rip offs of each other and each of the speaker claiming to be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enough has been written about the efficient operation of the Mumbai Dabbawalas and how their dabba (tiffin\/lunch box) delivery is 6sigma certified thanks to the error less operation they carry out. There is a very bad TEDxSSN talk as well. I always wondered how the semi literate villagers could gain this efficiency in operation till [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"book_review_cover_url":"","book_review_title":"","book_review_series":"","book_review_author":"","book_review_genre":"","book_review_isbn":"","book_review_publisher":"","book_review_release_date":"","book_review_format":"","book_review_pages":"","book_review_source":"","book_review_rating":"","book_review_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/photo-1547139559-c89c59d117611.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":981,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions\/981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ravi.rajiniravi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}