THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Mumbai’s famed Dabbawalas, for long the benchmark of logistical efficiency and a textbook case study for management students, will be the subject of a talk organised in the city by the Asian School of Business (ASB), in partnership with Young India (Yi).
‘Dabbawalas - A lecture on commitment, management and discipline’ will be delivered by Dr Pawan Giridharilal Agarwal, who has studied the Mumbai-based service providers in detail and has published a doctoral thesis on their network.
The lecture will be at 2.30 pm on February 27 at ASB’s campus in Pallipuram.
The Dabbawalas are a 5,000-strong community of disciplined workers providing nearly 2,00,000 people employed across Mumbai with fresh home-cooked food daily.
Such is the accuracy of the Dabbawalas’ supply chain - their error rate is one in 16 million transactions - that it has found them a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.
‘’We believe that the century-old trade, which has become an integral part of Mumbai’s culture, holds valuable lessons for business students and practitioners,’’ ASB Director Prof S Rajeev said in a statement.
Agarwal is the president of the Mumbai-based Kamlabai Educational and Charitable Trust, which runs a programme providing free education to the Dabbawalas and their children.