Dabbawalas teach management

After Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, IIT Kanpur, Indian School of Business and Management, Hyderabad (ISBM) and National Stock Exchange (NSE), it was the turn of students of the Vinod Gupta School of Management of IIT Kharagpur to learn the Six Sigma dabbawallah doctrine.

Six Sigma is a quality measurement and improvement programme, originally developed by Motorola, that focuses on the control of a process so that there are only 3.4 defects per million items or 99.9997 per cent accuracy levels.

Manish Tripathi, director, Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association (MTBSA), recently interacted with the students and faculty members of Vinod Gupta School of Management and Nebraska University of Omaha at IIT Kharagpur. "We do not believe in technology as much as we do manual labour and use common sense "� these are the secret of our success," he said.

However, the dabbawallas have a website and SMS services for instant delivery of lunch boxes. Mumbai Dabbawallas cater to about 2 lakh people in Mumbai, with an annual turnover of Rs 30 crore. Most of them have memorised the names of their customers, said Tripathi. According to the Forbes magazine the Mumbai dabbawalla have a six sigma performance. "I don't know why corporates rush for sigma six ratings. We got it easily just on the basis of hard work," said Tripathi.

Impressed by the simplicity of the dabbawallas, Krist Copich, advisor and member of the Nebraska University delegation said they will soon invite one of the Mumbai dabbawallas for a lecture.

Even multinationals are now planning to tap the 2 lakh dabbawallah costumer base. For instance, Microsoft has tied up with the dabbawallahs to market computers and laptops. Wearing a Vista T shirt and cap, they distribute Microsoft leaflets as they deliver lunch boxes. They get Rs 100 for selling each laptop or desktop.