It’s been more than a decade that the world woke up to the reality that Mumbai’s lunch-dabba system is an act of urban genius.
Some called it as the most ingenious food delivery system in the world. The Forbes magazine gave the dabbawalas (lunchbox deliverymen) a Six Sigma performance rating or a 99.99999 percent of precision, which means they make one error in 16 million deliveries! In the last 125 years, there has not been a single instance of a lunchbox that has not been delivered to its destination. Come rain or shine, heavy crowded local trains or Mumbai traffic, the lunch box is picked up from home and delivered. This is the precision of their service – and all this without using any technology.
In recent times, with the world and India taking digital leaps, the dabbawala’s too have found the need to embrace technology and offer click-based services.
"Most of our staff is semi-literate. We earn around Rs. 10,000 to 12,000 per month and were looking for opportunities to have an additional source of income. Our Prime Minister is working towards Digital India mission, and when we got an opportunity from Anulom Technologies for rental registrations, we too decided to offer digital services," says Ulhas Muke, President, Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association.
Dabba delivery to digital services
Around 5,000 dabbawalas travel over 60 to 70 km daily to deliver over 2 lakh lunchboxes across Mumbai, and have earned a reputation for their meticulous operations, integrity and honesty.
In October 2016, with the launch of digitaldabbawala.com, they are now expanding their delivery from just lunch boxes to last-mile delivery of digital services. This is a combined initiative with Anulom Technologies, a government approved rental-agreement registration website.
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"Today, everyone wants to work with a trusted facilitator for digital services. The first of such services by us has been around online rental agreement registration. Anulom directs our dabbawala to a customer’s doorstep with a laptop and a biometric device where the rental agreement format is shown, thumb impressions are taken with the help of biometric machine and documents collected if needed," says Jaising Pingle, Treasurer, Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association, and who is the first trained digital dabbawala.
Before launching this service, Anulom handpicked a 15 member team for process and laptop training. Each of these 15 individuals were chosen from different regions in Mumbai and Thane.
"We were amazed to witness that within two days this group had completely explored most of the laptop features and knew basics like turning it on, logging in and connecting to the net. Post this we held a two day boot camp in the evening for four hours to train them properly, both on the usage of laptops and biometric device working and also around the process of rental registration. We installed an app on their mobile devices. So there is no need to type a single letter. All they need to do is point and click and it is easily understandable. They are exceptionally fast learners," says Prabodh Navare, CEO, Anulom Technologies.
These people initially trained by Anulom have now become the building blocks of the digital movement and are training their fellow dabbawalas. Going ahead, digitaldabbawala.com is planning to launch services like making of Aadhaar cards, changing names on documents, marriage registrations or making other government documents.
(Source: Ashwani Mishra, ETCIO.com dated 2016-12-02)
Some called it as the most ingenious food delivery system in the world. The Forbes magazine gave the dabbawalas (lunchbox deliverymen) a Six Sigma performance rating or a 99.99999 percent of precision, which means they make one error in 16 million deliveries! In the last 125 years, there has not been a single instance of a lunchbox that has not been delivered to its destination. Come rain or shine, heavy crowded local trains or Mumbai traffic, the lunch box is picked up from home and delivered. This is the precision of their service – and all this without using any technology.
In recent times, with the world and India taking digital leaps, the dabbawala’s too have found the need to embrace technology and offer click-based services.
"Most of our staff is semi-literate. We earn around Rs. 10,000 to 12,000 per month and were looking for opportunities to have an additional source of income. Our Prime Minister is working towards Digital India mission, and when we got an opportunity from Anulom Technologies for rental registrations, we too decided to offer digital services," says Ulhas Muke, President, Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association.
Dabba delivery to digital services
Around 5,000 dabbawalas travel over 60 to 70 km daily to deliver over 2 lakh lunchboxes across Mumbai, and have earned a reputation for their meticulous operations, integrity and honesty.
In October 2016, with the launch of digitaldabbawala.com, they are now expanding their delivery from just lunch boxes to last-mile delivery of digital services. This is a combined initiative with Anulom Technologies, a government approved rental-agreement registration website.
Ad: India is the third largest breeding ground for technology start-ups focusing on digital innovation and disruption. Is your organisation fully digital?
"Today, everyone wants to work with a trusted facilitator for digital services. The first of such services by us has been around online rental agreement registration. Anulom directs our dabbawala to a customer’s doorstep with a laptop and a biometric device where the rental agreement format is shown, thumb impressions are taken with the help of biometric machine and documents collected if needed," says Jaising Pingle, Treasurer, Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association, and who is the first trained digital dabbawala.
Before launching this service, Anulom handpicked a 15 member team for process and laptop training. Each of these 15 individuals were chosen from different regions in Mumbai and Thane.
"We were amazed to witness that within two days this group had completely explored most of the laptop features and knew basics like turning it on, logging in and connecting to the net. Post this we held a two day boot camp in the evening for four hours to train them properly, both on the usage of laptops and biometric device working and also around the process of rental registration. We installed an app on their mobile devices. So there is no need to type a single letter. All they need to do is point and click and it is easily understandable. They are exceptionally fast learners," says Prabodh Navare, CEO, Anulom Technologies.
These people initially trained by Anulom have now become the building blocks of the digital movement and are training their fellow dabbawalas. Going ahead, digitaldabbawala.com is planning to launch services like making of Aadhaar cards, changing names on documents, marriage registrations or making other government documents.
(Source: Ashwani Mishra, ETCIO.com dated 2016-12-02)
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