Dr.Pawan Agrawal has completed his Ph.D thesis on the title, ‘A study of Logistics and Supply Chain Management of Dabbawala in Mumbai’. He has traveled worldwide spreading awareness about the Mumbai Dabbawalas. He has delivered lectures in Paris, Netherlands, US, UK and at management institutions all over India.

The Mumbai Dabbawallas are international figures now thanks to Forbes Global. The Forbes story details the efficiency which with they deliver the tiffins of their customers. Around 5000 dabbawallas deliver 175,000 lunches everyday and take the empty tiffin back. They make one mistake in 2 months. This means there is one error on every 16 million transactions. This is thus a six sigma performance (a term used in quality assurance if the percentage of correctness is 99.999999) – the performance which has made companies like Motorola and GE world famous for their quality.

Lets listen to him more about this esteemed organization. Here’s Part 1. If you want to watch Part 2, click here .