EPGP-09

Six Sigma Assignment on

Mumbai Dubbawallahs

Submitted by:
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1a. What do you think are the reasons/drivers (list as many) for achieving such an extraordinary
performance of Mumbai Dubbawallahs?

Team work, discipline and honesty are the reasons behind getting an extraordinary performance
of Mumbai Dubbawallahs. They drew their inspiration from the Great Maratha King Chhatrapati
Sivaji Maharaj ji. They are highly motivated because they believe that delivering food to office
goers is like a service to God and delivering medicine to the sick.

They have a flat organizational structure, due to which, decisions are taken on the spot. It helps
them take faster decision to tackle any eventuality arising due to Common cause variations like
the monsoon extremes of 2005.

All the Dubbawallahs share common belief, values and ethics. It helps them run the business
effectively. The Dubbawallahs are aware of what their customers value (food delivered on time,
every day). They don’t try to do anything other than that. They don’t overcomplicate things. They
don’t add extraneous value. They simply understand what their customers want, and they focus
hundred percent of their time and energy on meeting that need.

Their operational cost is low as they make use of handcarts, bicycles for delivering the food. This
helps them maintain and manage a very low-cost, high quality supply chain network system.

Efficient time management, process consistency and service commitment are some other traits
of the Dubbawallahs that help them improve their performance.

They promote innovation. They started coding system to Tiffin box for easy identification, which
are one of the examples of their innovation strategy. This helps them sort different delivery boxes
as per different delivery location.

Most of the Dubbawallahs remain in the same group for the entire working life. This helps them
build and maintain a healthy and trustworthy customer relationship.

After recruitment they provide complete process training to new joiner under the observation of
Muqaddam or any senior member. When they feel that new employees are capable to work, that
time training will completed. Recruitment is community based. This helps them bring on new
members to the system without compromising the quality of the overall system.

Everyone is shareholder of the association. There is no hire and fire policy. Whatever profits they
get is equally distributed within itself. It is more like of a democratic type of organizational HR
practices.
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1b. Why is that other tech savvy organizations such as FedEx or DHL cannot replicate this performance
for parcel delivery? Give as many reasons as possible.

Dubbawallahs do not make use of motorcycles like FedEx or DHL. Instead they use bicycles for
delivering the food. This help them reduce the overall operational cost thereby keeping their
delivery charges very low as compared to other savvy organizations. Their average trip cost is Rs.
6 per trip, whereas, if it were to be delivered by courier, it will cost around Rs. 85. This gives them
a competitive advantage over the pricing.

Minimal use of technology and reliability on trains and barefoot men, powered by efficient
process helps them deliver their output. Minimum use of infrastructure leading to low capital
investment and less dependency on technology helps them to become independent of suppliers
unlike the tech savvy organizations.

Dubbawallahs have an owner-partner system based on a profit-sharing model. This helps them
cutoff the time required in resolving any disputes as everyone is an owner in the system.

This kind of a flat organization is difficult to imitate by the tech savvy organizations who usually
have a hierarchical organizational structure.

2. Draw a process chart for the whole process. What do you think are the potential "fail
points/variations" (where mistakes can happen, classify them into special cause and common cause
variations)? How do you think they have avoided such mistakes?

Potential "fail points/variations & Process Chart:

Over dependence on public transport for delivering the food could be a potential fail point. Any
variation in the train arrival time might have a direct impact on the Dubbawallahs serviceability.
They need to look in to alternative mode of transportation as a backup, which can be used during
contingencies.

Common cause variation due to natural calamity like the Monsoon of July 2005 is a potential fail
point in delivering food. As majority of the Dubbawallahs are foot soldier, it becomes a challenge
for them to work in such situation. Their process is not capable to tackle such eventualities.

Restaurants deliver food anytime for free, however the Dubbawallahs have a very strict delivery
timing and are not flexible enough to match the erratic schedules of a workplace.

Dubbawallahs do not take dinner orders which could be required for some of the customers who
have flexible work timings and need to work on night shifts.

Dubbawallahs work on monthly subscription basis. They do not have any solution for occasional
deliveries of food.
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Dubbawallahs
reach Railway
Station

Collection/Delivery of Collection/Delivery of Collection/Delivery of

Dubba@ Home1 Dubba@ Home2 Dubba@ HomeN

Sorting of Dubbas at
Railway Station

Dubbas gets
loaded/unloaded
to/from trains

Dubbas gets transported

by local trains.

Dubbas gets
loaded/unloaded
to/from trains

Dubbas gets
loaded/unloaded
to/from wooden carts
and bicycles for delivery.

Dubbawallahs
deliver/collect the
dubba to/from the
customer.
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3. What is your opinion about the suggestions that were put forth by management students,
consultants, etc. to improve the existing system? What do you think are the benefits? Why is that the
Dubbawallahs are resisting to change?

Most of the Dubbawallahs are either illiterate or semi-literate. The suggestions put forth by management
students like leveraging technology to increase effectiveness may not be successful initially. Many of the
Dubbawallahs do not use smart phones. They need to go through a technical learning curve to make use
of these technologies. Also, the suggestion to make use of motor cycles may be not be a wise one. They
may lose their competitive advantage in the pricing front by incurring additional operational cost. Using
public transport for delivering food is central to their delivery system. It is the backbone of the entire
mechanism that helps them deliver food at the right time and place cost effectively.

If the initial hurdles of learning curve and cost efficiency are crossed, then it will have a tremendous effect
on the delivery system. They can leverage technology to take order online and deliver food to new areas.
It will help them scale up their business and get good returns. They can compete in the newer market
segments where the food delivery startups compete. This will help them expand their horizon in the food
delivery services. Also use of motorcycles combined with technology like GPS will help them track
deliveries on real time basis and add more value to the tech savvy customers.

Resistance to this change by Dubbawallahs is because of the fact that, they want to focus on their core
competency i.e. delivering food on time at the right place. Using technology may be difficult for them and
will incur additional operational cost. They have expertise in offline mode of delivery which they would
like to focus on, for delivering the food.