Each day in Mumbai, around 5,000 dabbawallas successfully deliver almost 200,000 boxes containing hot cooked lunches. These are collected from the homes of suburban office workers by bicycle, taken to a sorting depot, loaded onto a train, sorted once again and then delivered by bike to the workplaces so quickly that they are still piping hot.
If this weren't impressive enough, there is no electronic tracking system involved - no barcodes, no PDAs, no "sign here, please". In fact, the vast majority of dabbawallas are illiterate. The only system for getting such a vast quantity of boxes to the right place is a series of coloured markings painted on the lid of the boxes.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster. But it's not. Dabbawalla deliveries are amongst the most reliable in the world - with only 1 mistake in every 6,000,000 deliveries.
Compare that to the 1 mistake in every 5,000 parcels made by one global courier company. Even our beloved Royal Mail only aims to deliver 93% of 1st Class letters the next working day.
Why the sudden interest in logistic statistics? Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...
A couple of weeks ago, I ordered a new bed and paid extra to have it delivered quickly. Using their online delivery tool, I selected to have it delivered last Tuesday when there would be someone at home. But, we soon ran out of Tuesday and nothing had been delivered, and that meant several hours trying to crack a voice-recognition helpline to get through to a fellow humanoid... who pressed the wrong button and put me back to the start of the process.
Eventually, four departments later, they informed me that the parcel had never been dispatched and that the earliest they could deliver it would be Friday. Cue a diary reshuffle.
Friday arrived, and to be sure I wasn't wasting valuable time again, I gave the company a ring to check it was definitely coming. Yes. "Guaranteed by 5pm" I was told. And yet 5pm came and went with no sign of a delivery.
Here we go again. (Voice recognition and Scottish accents mix as well as oil and water.)
Turns out it was never going to be delivered. Yes, they told me that it would. Yes, the online tracking system told me it had been dispatched. Yes, it's been sitting in a warehouse 20 minutes along the road for 3 days now. But, "unfortunately" they said, company policy means they require 4 working days between it arriving in the warehouse and it departing the warehouse.
So they are going to deliver it today. Allegedly. They've only got an hour left to do it before the whole charade begins again.
The company concerned employs the use of online tracking systems, barcodes, scanners, automated hubs and all manner of other contraptions. One can't help feel they'd be better employing a man with a bike and a series of coloured paint splodges.
Tuesday 23 July 2013
Tuesday 16 July 2013
Paradise by the dashboard light
Last week I had a wee jaunt down to Englandshire, and that meant spending time in some of my favourite places on earth - motorway services.
Not everyone's idea of paradise, I'll grant you, but behind the exterior of soggy pasties, extortionate prices and urinals that are just that wee bit too close together lies something of great beauty.
Now, I'm not talking about these modern, wannabe service stations sited on or by junctions where any old pedestrian can turn up. I'm talking about bona fide, between-junction services where there is no other way of reaching them than from the motorway. There's something about that isolated world that's been magical to me ever since I was a child.
For most of my childhood, we tended to go camping in France, and the long drive down to Portsmouth to catch the ferry meant two things: indulging in a bit of Eddie Stobart spotting and multiple visits to motorway services.
First stop was always the Welcome Break at Abington (not in the class of bona fide services, but I'll let that pass!) as I was always feeling travel sick after the journey over the hills through Lanark. On occasion, we'd manage as far as the RoadChef at Annandale Water, a particular favourite as it had a man-made lake where I could feed the ducks, second only to the marvel that is the Westmoreland at Tebay.
From there, I would measure where I was in the country by what service station we were passing, offering helpful tips to my parents along the way: "Don't stop here, dad, there's a playground if you keep going till Sandbach..." My nine-year-old knowledge of M6 service stations could have rivalled any trucker's.
There was an inevitability to each stop: we'd always end up eating in a Granary, I'd always buy a travel version of a game I already had and my mum would always say, "it's just nice to stretch your legs."
I don't know what was so special about these visits. Perhaps it was the break from Eddie Stobart spotting. Perhaps it was the giant sized confectionary found nowhere else. Perhaps. But I would like to think it was that little bit of magic created by this other-worldly isolated realm, this kingdom with only one way in and one way out, packed with shops and fast-food restaurants and arcade games. The magic of those little tins of flour-coated travel sweets, miniature games of battleships and cafes on the bridge over the carriageway. The feeling of being somewhere different, like the feeling you get in an airport departure lounge. The feeling that in the motorway services, anything can happen.
Then again, maybe it's just nice to stretch your legs...
Not everyone's idea of paradise, I'll grant you, but behind the exterior of soggy pasties, extortionate prices and urinals that are just that wee bit too close together lies something of great beauty.
Now, I'm not talking about these modern, wannabe service stations sited on or by junctions where any old pedestrian can turn up. I'm talking about bona fide, between-junction services where there is no other way of reaching them than from the motorway. There's something about that isolated world that's been magical to me ever since I was a child.
For most of my childhood, we tended to go camping in France, and the long drive down to Portsmouth to catch the ferry meant two things: indulging in a bit of Eddie Stobart spotting and multiple visits to motorway services.
First stop was always the Welcome Break at Abington (not in the class of bona fide services, but I'll let that pass!) as I was always feeling travel sick after the journey over the hills through Lanark. On occasion, we'd manage as far as the RoadChef at Annandale Water, a particular favourite as it had a man-made lake where I could feed the ducks, second only to the marvel that is the Westmoreland at Tebay.
From there, I would measure where I was in the country by what service station we were passing, offering helpful tips to my parents along the way: "Don't stop here, dad, there's a playground if you keep going till Sandbach..." My nine-year-old knowledge of M6 service stations could have rivalled any trucker's.
There was an inevitability to each stop: we'd always end up eating in a Granary, I'd always buy a travel version of a game I already had and my mum would always say, "it's just nice to stretch your legs."
I don't know what was so special about these visits. Perhaps it was the break from Eddie Stobart spotting. Perhaps it was the giant sized confectionary found nowhere else. Perhaps. But I would like to think it was that little bit of magic created by this other-worldly isolated realm, this kingdom with only one way in and one way out, packed with shops and fast-food restaurants and arcade games. The magic of those little tins of flour-coated travel sweets, miniature games of battleships and cafes on the bridge over the carriageway. The feeling of being somewhere different, like the feeling you get in an airport departure lounge. The feeling that in the motorway services, anything can happen.
Then again, maybe it's just nice to stretch your legs...
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