Dabbawalas Performance

Question: Discuss about theDabbawalas Performance. Answer: Introduction The success, efficiency, and performance of a given company depend on many factors. First, it depends on the effectiveness of the system and the way they attend to customers. Every company should have a measure that determines if their performance objectives are met. The company should be able to meet the operational performance goals. These operational performance targets include; costs, quality, flexibility, speed and dependability (Fielt 2011). Dabbawala Service has demonstrated ability to meet these performance goals of operation as explained below. Quality Performance Objective According to researchers, quality is more than just conforming to a given specification. It involves how well a product performs according to the intended function, how the features meet the expected desires and the reliability of that service or product (Fielt 2011). The product or service should meet the customers' needs and should be worth the amount paid (Jacobs and Chase 2013). The services offered by Dabbawala meet quality performance objective because they meet the customer needs. These services meet the intended function because they are delivered between 12 midday and 1 pm which is the time for taking lunch (Slack, Chambers, and Johnston, 2010). Speed Performance Objective Fielt (2011) explains that the speed performance goal refers to pace at which services are delivered to the customers. It depends on how often and rapid the company provides its services. It may also refer to the time the services are received and whether they get to customers on time. Dabbawala meets this objective because of the speed they use in ensuring that the customers get their lunch on time (Slack, Chambers, and Johnston, 2010). They have a schedule that ensures that lunch boxes are delivered on time. These schedules are well outlined, and this makes every person play their role as expected of them. Dependability Performance Objective It refers to the company's operations being dependable. It involves delivering the services on time and conforming to the agreed costs and prices. It also includes the ability of the services meeting their expected use and the consistency of the service over a considerable amount of time. The Dabbawala service has been in operation for a long time now (Slack, Chambers, and Johnston, 2010). The service is said to be reliable because it has a remarkable record that is almost flawless especially when it comes to delivery. Fewer errors are encountered since the workers are accustomed to the local areas they collect from or deliver (Chenet, Dagger, and O'Sullivan 2010). Flexibility Performance Objective It involves being able to adjust to new requirements quickly. The Dabbawala Service is flexible since they can improve their delivery services to new customers (Slack, Chambers, and Johnston, 2010). The fact that the workers know the area well means they can easily deliver the lunch boxes to the new customer without any confusion arising (Kumar, Batista, and Maull, 2011). The schedule also has a range of time meaning you can drop your lunch box between 7-9 am depending on the time of convenience. Cost Performance Objective The Dabbawala service has an excellent price performance in that it has allowed its customers to pay the fee monthly (Slack, Chambers, and Johnston, 2010). It is way better than having to pay the fee daily. It is also cost effective since the customers receive direct delivery and they do not have to travel or take a train to go collect the food (Chenet, Dagger, and O'Sullivan 2010). Dabbawalas Service Dependability The Dabbawala service offers an incredible dependable service. Mumbai being one of the most densely populated city means that traffic jams do occur (Slack, Chambers, and Johnston, 2010). Therefore, Dabbawala saw an opportunity and came up with the brilliant idea of delivering the lunch to the various workplaces. This service is dependable since it ensures that the process is repeated day in, day out (Chenet, Dagger, and O'Sullivan 2010). The service involves delivering the lunch boxes to every individual workers office at lunch time. The boxes are then collected after lunch and returned to homes to wait for the delivery process on the next day. The service conforms to a particular schedule, and this makes it reliable (Kumar, Batista, and Maull, 2011). The boxes are collected within the speculated time, are transported within a particular period and delivered to the customers at the expected time. According to the research done on it, the service has proven to have 99.9999% dependability (Slack, Chambers, and Johnston, 2010). It is a very high value of reliability, and this is what has increased trust by the customers. The service has a well-established record of being almost flawless despite weather conditions in Mumbai that are characterized by the monsoons (Slack, Chambers, and Johnston, 2010). The fact that the service delivers are accustomed to the local areas means that they can quickly identify places of delivery without many errors. They can provide the services to the right customer at the right time without losing time trying to figure out the offices (Chenet, Dagger, and O'Sullivan 2010). They also have a proper time management which has been the key to their success. The company has also incorporated new technology such as SMS and us of their website, and this has increased reliability and dependability from their customers. Main Threats to the Service Despite the services being offered by Dabbawala being dependable, reliable and almost flawless, it has a few loopholes that could result in its downfall (Slack, Chambers, and Johnston, 2010). The most crucial one is the fact that they do not have a system of documentation. Documentation is essential especially when it comes to recording keeping. It enables one to know the number of customers, and their records (Chase 2012). With these records, they can improve their services and know better ways of handling their clients. The fact that the company relies so much on the delivery men means that failure by one to perform their tasks could result in a problem. The company has a lot of customers, and this means that it has to employ many deliverers to ensure efficiency. It could be costly for the enterprise due to costs incurred to pay every deliverer (Chenet, Dagger, and O'Sullivan 2010). However, if for instance, they had an organized system and well-distributed offices, the delivery co uld be improved. Finally, the service is operated by low-tech and little use of modern technology (Slack, Chambers, and Johnston, 2010), which means that if a company using advanced technology could arise, it could give the Dabbawala service a great competition and most customers are likely to shift to the new corporation. The company is unlikely to expand because of the challenges due low-tech. The workers mark the boxes, and this could result in huge errors. The fact that these boxes change hands up to four times could also mean that it might be inefficient (Cho, et al. 2012; Slack 2015). Reference List Chase, J., (2012)Operations management. Tata McGraw-Hill. Chenet, P., Dagger, T.S. and O'Sullivan, D., (2010) Service quality, trust, commitment, and service differentiation in business relationships.Journal of services Marketing,24(5), pp.336-346. Cho, D.W., Lee, Y.H., Ahn, S.H. and Hwang, M.K., (2012) A framework for measuring the performance of service supply chain management.Computers Industrial Engineering,62(3), pp.801-818. Fielt, E., (2011) Business service management: understanding business models. Jacobs, R. and Chase, R., (2013)Operations and supply chain management. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Kumar, V., Batista, L. and Maull, R., (2011) The impact of operations performance on customer loyalty.Service Science,3(2), pp.158-171. Slack, N. (2015).Operations strategy. John Wiley Sons, Ltd. Slack, N., Chambers, S. and Johnston, R., (2010) Operations Management. Harlow, England: Financial Times Prentice Hall.