ISSUE NO.

01

KAIZEN-ED
OPERATIONS DIGEST

ROUTE
SUPPLY CHAIN OPTIMIZATION TIME TO
ANALYSIS ALGORITHM CHARGE
A MODEL OF THE LEGENDARY POTENTIAL SOLUTION TO URBAN TIME TO GEAR UP FOR INDIAN
DABBAWALLAS TRANSPORTATION WOES AUTOMOBILE OEMS

THE SUPPLY CHAIN MODEL OF MUMBAI DABAWALLAS
On 5th July 2005 when the
Mumbai was battling with
unusual heavy rainfall. There
were these dabbawallas who
delivered the meals prepared n
customers home to their offices
and returned the empty
Dabbas the same day. Since
1890 more than 175,000
lunches are moved and
delivered each day by an
estimated 4,500 to 5,000
dabbawallas across Mumbai
and yet, a system based on
barefoot men, public trains and
simple, reusable containers in a
city of some 12.5 million
people is widely regarded as
one of the top performance
chains in the world.
Dabbawallas make less
than one mistake in every 6
million deliveries. This
credibility have earned them a
six-sigma designation by the
Forbes magazine and ISO 9001
accreditation.
Supply Chain Model
The Dabbawalas start their
journey by collecting lunch
boxes from each house by
cycles or by foot. The
maximum waiting time to
collect lunch boxes it 2 mins.
Every dabbawalla has to reach
Mumbai
Dabbawalas : a
model of
service
excellence
collection Centre sharp at 9.30
am, from these collections
point they must reach the
nearest railway station where
aggregation and sorting is
done, then these are carried to
its Destination railway station
by Local Trains. From every
destination station, these lunch
boxes are carried to destination
zones by cycles or by carts.
From here the lunch boxes are
carried to offices or workplace
which reach by lunch time. In
the entire process, the dabbas
exchange hands six times.
Dabbawalas unique
coding System
To avoid any mistakes of
interchange of boxes, they
[AUTHOR NAME] 1
follow a coding system that is The Dabbawala Organization
written on the top of every follow a unique code of
lunch box. conduct. Dabbawalas, who
range in age from 18 to 65,
always remain in their groups
for their entire working lives,
there is no mandatory
retirement age. As a result,
members of each team care
deeply for one another. While
on the job, the dabbawallas
wear the same style of clothes
and white Gandhi caps, making
them easy to identify among
the crowd. Dabbawalas
BVI- Borivali, code of the origin
devotion to their simple
station mission: Delivering food on
time, every time is the secret to
E-Area collected from the success of this organization
within Borivali
0% Fuel
5- code of Destination 0% modern
technology
station
0% Investment
9-area to be delivered 0% Disputes
100% customer
within
satisfaction
RC-building to be delivered 99.99%
performance
within
14-floor to be delivered at Key results
2. Cost of Service per
lunch box = Rs. 450 per
month and is standard
price for all
3. Dabbawalas are well
used to the local areas
where they are
functioning and make
use of short cuts to save
time
4. No interchange of lunch
boxes inspite of lunch
boxes changing hands
six times
5. They do not use vehicles
which require fuel
which makes them 0%
Fuel reliant
6. They do not use any
modern technology for
carrying out the logistics
7. Unique organization
with Six Sigma
designation and 99.99%
rate of performance
8. Customer Satisfaction
accounts 100% with
utmost trust

Jain last name of the 1. Turnover is about Credits:

Thirty-Six Crores Priyanka Dongre
customer
annually NITIE Mumbai | PGDIE |
Class of 2018
Unique Code of Conduct

[AUTHOR NAME] 2
Route optimization algorithms:
location to all the supply
A potentiAl solution to indiAs locations while simultaneously
urban transport woes maintaining a desired level of
customer satisfaction. Since
Soumik Sarangi, SC, OPMAC
most of the Indian cities have
expanded radially, there are a
large number of possible routes
to move from Point A to Point B.
In addition to this, several
Soumik Sarangi(SC,OPMAC)
resource constraints make
Recently Tata Motors launched the STARBUS Electric development of such a transport
and STARBUS Hybrid as a part of its commitment
towards providing solutions towards Indias Mass Public system difficult. Look at the
transportation system. complexity of Bangalores Bus
network.

Source:http://www.india.com/auto/tata- 1.1% in 2011. Therefore, apart

motors-hybrid-electric-buses-launched-in-
india-1785449/
from procurement of advanced
transport vehicles, we also need
Tata Motors launched the to focus on developing optimal
STARBUS Electric and routes for the Bus Rapid
STARBUS Hybrid as a part of Transport System (BRTS) to Source:
its commitment towards succeed as viable alternatives to http://datameet.org/2016/02/14/analysing-
bangalores-bus-network/
providing solutions towards private vehicles.
Indias Mass Public One very important and relevant
transportation system. This is an
area of Operations research
admirable progress towards
realizing the dream of involves the optimal vehicle
sustainable Smart cities where routing problem. The optimal
public transportation facilities routing problem aims to
would be efficient and cheap.
However, this is only one aspect minimize the combined cost of
of the problem. The share of transport for a number of
buses in Indias vehicles has vehicles from the originating
declined from 11.1% in 1951 to
[AUTHOR NAME] 3
The primary aim of such a
transport system is to minimize
the redundancies in the network.
The vehicle routing problem can
be subdivided into many
subcategories, out of which the
Travelling Salesman Problem is
the most fundamental type of
route optimization problem. The
three basic criteria for route
optimization problems are:
Each point of interest (Node)
must be visited by a single
vehicle only once
Each vehicle starts and ends at
the same node
Total demand on a single vehicle
should not exceed its capacity.
The Travelling Salesman
Problem (TSP)
The problem statement in a TSP
is how to minimize the distance
travelled by a vehicle so that it
covers all points of interest
(called Nodes). The number of
feasible routes increases
drastically with increase in the
number of nodes. The
computation effort required is
very high and process becomes
too complex. However, modern
day heuristic algorithms like
Simulated Annealing and Neural
Networks can be applied to solve
such problems.
Hence, there is a lot of scope for
improving the presence of public
transport system in India using
Operations Research. Interested
readers may look up for Swarm
intelligence algorithms such as
Ant Colony Optimization
(ACO) and Particle Swarm
Optimization (PSO), which are
increasingly being used for such
problems.
INDIAN
AUTOMOBILE
OEMS: TIME TO
CHARGE
India, a nation which has a fair
share of Tesla fanboys (though
no customers yet), has silently
started its ride on the Electric
Vehicle bandwagon. This has
been marked by two separate
events. The first one was Tata
Motors, the Indian behemoth
and owner of JLR, winning the
first bid to supply 10000 electric
cars to EESL, a government
subsidiary known for procuring
LED bulbs at record low prices.
The second event was BYD
Auto, a Chinese automobile
giant, winning the bid for
providing 25 electric buses to
Himachal Pradesh Transport
Corporation. The contrast is
clear. In one bid, a local player
with indigenous technology has
defeated foreign firms such as
Hyundai and Nissan-Renault
while in the other, BYD has
clearly sidelined Indian HCV
experts such as Tata Motors and
Ashok Leyland. The message is
clear. A new battle is about to
start for market share in personal
and commercial vehicles, one
that will be most challenging
particularly in terms of
operations and supply chain
management.
All new EVs which will go on
road in future will be very
similar to the existing ones in
[AUTHOR NAME] 4
terms of experience thus leaving
very small space for marketing
mavens for a huge coup in terms
of generating demand. The real
issues will be in terms of the
ability to produce substantial
quantities in an agile and
efficient manner. These changes
will mainly comprise of
following issues: Proprietary
technology, Sourcing issues,
Vendor management and Cost
management.
Every new platform that any
OEM will develop will have to
formed around the existing
proprietary electric drivetrain
technologies available with
companies such as Bosch,
Mitsubishi, Denso and the like.
This means substantial shift
from the core expertise of Indian
OEMs towards foreign partners
and supplier for atleast a few
years.
Moreover, the major raw
material that constitutes a
vehicle will no longer be
dominated by Automobile
Grade Steel. Copper and
Lithium will be crucial raw
materials in future and will form
a big chunk in terms of BOM challenges in field of charging
costs for all vehicles in future. infrastructure are expected to be
Raw material import will be an resolved by the government. In
area where all OEMs need to the midst of the ongoing works
focus on in midst of an of BS VI implementation the
environment where Indian automobile sector seems to be
Rupee has been continuously entering a world of chaos. Thea
witnessing immense volatility. challenges may appear to be
Further, the existing investments momentous but those who
mad by companies into BS IV perform will have a chance to
upgrades through their tier one dominate the worlds third
suppliers will come under largest automobile market for
pressure. next 50 years. Suddenly the it
appears the stakes are higher
Vendors operating in casting and
than ever before.
machining areas particularly
related to Internal Combustion
Credits:
Engines will be the first the first Pulkit Agarwal
to face the burnt as they wont Senior Engineer, Bajaj Auto Ltd.
get to develop any new parts
unless sufficient indigenization
begins.
The most potent but hidden
threat will be related to new
investments made on modern
platform development and
related tooling costs for EV. A
sudden spurt in demand may
create crazy bottlenecks in Li-
ion battery supplies thus
requiring proficient forecasting,
strategizing and de-risking by all
major OEMs. The major
[AUTHOR NAME] 5
 COMING SOON

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