TE
科技回声
首页24小时热榜最新最佳问答展示工作
GitHubTwitter
首页

科技回声

基于 Next.js 构建的科技新闻平台,提供全球科技新闻和讨论内容。

GitHubTwitter

首页

首页最新最佳问答展示工作

资源链接

HackerNews API原版 HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 科技回声. 版权所有。

The daily lunch delivery of India's dabbawallahs

143 点作者 ultrasaurus大约 14 年前

13 条评论

potatolicious大约 14 年前
Having grown up in Asia before moving to the West, I've always wondered why we accept such shoddy excuses for lunch around here. You've got limp, cold sandwiches, or reheated leftovers in tupperwares.<p>Or you spend a pretty dime on some nice, real food by eating out.<p>Where I grew up, lunchboxes are small, but elaborate - food is neatly compartmentalized like in the article, and just about every place has a steamer to heat it up without the use of microwaves (aka the dessicator).
评论 #2508390 未加载
评论 #2508069 未加载
评论 #2509360 未加载
评论 #2508578 未加载
blackRust大约 14 年前
First as mentioned Indian meals take time to cook and there is a strong emphasis on home cooked meals. There is social stigma involved in carrying the tiffin case back.<p>The workforce for the dhabbawallas is cheap and they live on a fairly low income. The way I understand it only a certain caste are dhabbawallas (correct me if I'm wrong).<p>Even though the number of deliveries is huge, the people being delivered earn considerably more than the dhabbawallas, they all have office jobs.<p>Having lived and experienced the Indian mechanism of things I am always impressed when this story resurfaces, but unfortunately knowing India I am very skeptical. They no doubt excel at what they do, but I would take the statistics with a grain of salt.<p>Ask yourself how it is possible to measure such performance?<p>The entire mechanism is so informal and excludes any 'reporting' (in the sense of data about efficiency) and is focused purely on delivery. I know a lot of "certified" companies in India that lack basic factory security, hygiene and protocols: they would fail a "real" certification.
评论 #2508919 未加载
评论 #2509087 未加载
评论 #2509336 未加载
ajju大约 14 年前
The "high end tiffin set" linked from the article costs $85. You could probably buy it for under $20 at your local Indian grocery store. If you are in a large city it's quite likely within 10 miles of where you live/work.
评论 #2508517 未加载
评论 #2508867 未加载
jessedhillon大约 14 年前
Does anyone else think it's ironic that a company called "Design <i>Within Reach</i>" sells tiffins for $85, which even in America could be had for $20. (And in India, perhaps $10-15)
评论 #2509617 未加载
评论 #2508264 未加载
评论 #2508384 未加载
marcamillion大约 14 年前
It is things like this, why I love capitalism.<p>Not getting into a political debate, but which other economic system known to man, could allow a system to be created that is more efficient than better capitalized rivals (read FedEx, UPS, DHL) and all packages delivered by people that are illiterate.<p>I think it is easy to underestimate the logistical challenges of delivering food to 175,000 people all over a city when you have never tried it.<p>As someone that has worked with a friend try to coordinate lunch orders for just 100 - 200 clients (including buying enough ingredients so there isn't waste, to collecting all orders in time, to delivering lunches on time), let me assure this is no easy feat.<p>The most ironic thing though is that I think that if you were to plot a graph between the number of customers you have and how easy it is, I think you would see that it initially starts a in dip (i.e. delivering and serving lunch for 1 - 10 people is relatively easy, but as you go up to say 500 people complexity blows up and efficiency - on every scale - plummets) and then after you reach some local maxima (when you are able to afford more people and better systems from the revenues) efficiency starts to pick up again and the graph goes up and to the right.<p>God bless the free market - wherever it is!
评论 #2508823 未加载
评论 #2508014 未加载
raghava大约 14 年前
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/CaseStudy_MumbaiDabbawallas.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/CaseStudy...</a><p>(shoddy design of ppt, you have been warned!) Page 10 onwards, their system is described briefly.<p>Another study published by IIM Ahmedabad. <a href="http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/publications/data/2005-09-01ravichandran.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/publications/data/2005-09-01ravic...</a><p>HBR's case study from last year, for those who want a paid article: <a href="http://hbr.org/product/the-dabbawala-system-on-time-delivery-every-time/an/610059-PDF-ENG" rel="nofollow">http://hbr.org/product/the-dabbawala-system-on-time-delivery...</a><p>Yet another case study: (paid article) <a href="http://cases.ivey.uwo.ca/cases/pages/home.aspx?Mode=showproduct&#38;prod=9B04D013" rel="nofollow">http://cases.ivey.uwo.ca/cases/pages/home.aspx?Mode=showprod...</a><p>A similar one, comparing NYC. <a href="http://etidweb.tamu.edu/classes/idis344/Is%20IT%20a%20necessity%20-%20lunch%20delivery%20system-3p.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://etidweb.tamu.edu/classes/idis344/Is%20IT%20a%20necess...</a><p>Mumbai dabbawallahs are pretty cool in their methods! (dabba = box, wallah = suffix, that says person)
Cherian_Abraham大约 14 年前
NYT wrote a pretty good article a while ago on these guys: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/business/worldbusiness/29lunch.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/business/worldbusiness/29l...</a>
srean大约 14 年前
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N25inoCea24" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N25inoCea24</a> youtube video of a TED talk by the president of Mumbai Dabbawala Education Centre. Closed captioning would have helped non-indian viewers, this commentary on the video might help <a href="http://www.hindu.com/mp/2011/03/14/stories/2011031451160400.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.hindu.com/mp/2011/03/14/stories/2011031451160400....</a>
stevoski大约 14 年前
Definitely fascinating. Don't forget, however, that many of these Mumbai dabbawallahs live a precarious existence.<p>Perhaps the fear of homelessness and hunger encourage the high success rate. This is not a model I'd like to replicate in my own business.
评论 #2508680 未加载
rokhayakebe大约 14 年前
I am sure some techies are thinking "I can write software to optimize this system and increase their revenue/profit. I will not charge them for the software, and will make money from the money they save.....". Just ensure your software can guarantee an accuracy rate close to theirs.
评论 #2508256 未加载
buckwild大约 14 年前
I totally remember seeing these dudes when I visited India. Dabbawallah roughly translates to "box guy" (or in context, "lunchbox guy"). They also have these guys called subgiewallahs who are basically walking farmers markets...
trickjarrett大约 14 年前
I'm reading "The Starfish and the Spider" right now, though I'm early into the book, this system fascinates me. I find the illiteracy which both videos touched on equally fascinating as the system evolved around the workers' abilities rather than finding workers able to fit the system.
blocke大约 14 年前
Fascinating article and videos. Thanks for sharing.<p>Chaotic yet organized systems like this fascinate me.