Three cheers to the Mumbai Dabbawalas! They have got high-class ratings! The Forbes magazine gave the dabbawalas a ‘Six Sigma’ performance rating or a 99.99999 percent of precision, which means they make one error in 16 million deliveries!
Ritesh Andre, who was representing the president of the Mumbai dabbawalas, revealed the startup plans of Dabbawalas and said the startup will supply organic produce, possibly organic vegetables. “We are in the process of developing a business model for our startup.
Most Mumbai dabbawalas come from farming families that grow organic grain and vegetables. The idea of the business is to deliver organic produce through their Six Sigma-certified supply chain. We will use technology for the same purpose,” he said.
In the last 125 years, there has not been a single instance of a lunchbox that has not been delivered to its destination. The New York Times reported in 2007 that the 125-year-old dabbawala industry continues to grow at a rate of 5–10% per year.
Andre spoke about how Mumbai dabbawalas are embracing Six Sigma technology. “Various IT companies approach us with a number of business models, but it is difficult to implement them with the same efficiency and we continued with our existing model. However, after the implementation of goods and services tax (GST), we are in the process of adopting financial technology,” he explained.
In 2016 after the launch of PM Modi’s Digital India initiative, the Mumbai dabbawalas adopted Six Sigma technology through their ‘Digital Dabbawala’ website. The website launched is catering customers in Mumbai and Thane areas – they can register themselves online to enjoy Dabbawala’s service at their doorstep.
This will also make payments easier through the online channel and thereby boost the government drive to transform India into a cashless economy. There are currently over 5,000 Dabbawalas working tirelessly in Mumbai delivering over 200,000 lunch boxes each day. With Digital Dabbawala we expand our delivery from just dabbas to last-mile delivery of Digital Services.
