I drove my wife to the dry cleaners early this morning trying to get there before traffic became an issue. While I waited in the car for her to finish her transaction, I was watching the proceedings on the pavement outside. Two employees of the laundry were placing a large number of clothes on three white sheets while the dhobis, presumably sub-contractors, counted the items and a third employee of the laundry made notes in his diary. A few minutes later, they had folded the sheets, tied the corners in a knot, loaded them onto their motorcycle and were off.
This laundry is one of the best run in Pune and people swear by the quality of their job and more importantly about their commitment to delivering on time. Which brings me to my question for the day.
How do they manage to run this process seemingly without error day in day out, without a computerized system and RFIDs to track the movement and progress of their clothes to the outsourced dhobis and back? I am sure the dhobis do similar work for many laundries.
Ditto with the dabbawallahs. We have all heard stories of their 6 sigma process and how they deliver on time without error. But I am yet to read about the actual process they follow. We know there are markings on the aluminium containers that tell even an illiterate person where the container gets consolidated, de-consolidated, and the building where it to be delivered at both ends. We do not get to read on how they manage the system without letting errors creep in.
Time to do some research.
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