The legendary dabbawalas of Mumbai

In Mumbai, thousands of “dabbawalas” deliver hot lunches to hundreds of thousands of customers throughout the city, and then return the empty dabbas (lunchboxes) the same day. They are a model of efficiency, a decentralized network that functions better than many mechanized or computerized ones, and yet they don’t even use smartphones. Harvard Business Review wrote about the dabbawala system in 2012 (found via the Why Is This Interesting newsletter):

“The 5,000 or so dabbawalas in the city have an astounding service record. Every working day they transport more than 130,000 lunchboxes throughout Mumbai, the world’s fourth-most-populous city. That entails conducting upwards of 260,000 transactions in six hours each day, six days a week, 52 weeks a year (minus holidays), but mistakes are extremely rare.

Amazingly, the dabbawalas—semiliterate workers who largely manage themselves—have achieved that level of performance at very low cost, in an ecofriendly way, without the use of any IT system or even cell phones.

The dabbawala service is legendary for its reliability. Since it was founded, in 1890, it has endured famines, wars, monsoons, Hindu-Muslim riots, and a series of terrorist attacks. It has attracted worldwide attention and visits by Prince Charles, Richard Branson, and employees of Federal Express, a company renowned for its own mastery of logistics.”