What you can learn from a dabbawalla

A Six Sigma Quality Certification endorsed by Forbes magazine, a fan club that includes Prince Charles and Richard Branson (owner of the Virgin empire) -- this guest lecture was definitely going to be unlike any other we have had on campus at NITIE, Mumbai.
The speakers were not your regular pinstripe, suit-clad, swanky corporate types who are often spotted in B-school auditoriums, spewing management jargon.
Raghunath Megde and Gangaram Talekar, president and secretary respectively of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust of Mumbai, were here to share their mantras on 'Time Management' and 'Supply Chain Management'.
Popularly known as Mumbai's dabbawallas, they were here to explain how their establishment managed to supply, without any hitches, 2,00,000 lunch boxes everyday in the busy metropolis of Mumbai.
Note: The Six Sigma quality certification was established by the International Quality Federation in 1986, to judge the quality standards of an organisation. According to an article published in Forbes magazine in 1998, one mistake for every eight million deliveries constitutes Six Sigma quality standards.