Hisar (Haryana), Aug 13 Explaining the secret behind the success story of the Mumbai dabbawalas, the proverbial lunch-box carriers, a senior official of the 119-year-old association, on Thursday said that it was all due to their sheer discipline and hard work.

"There is a three-point formula behind our success - that is of discipline, code of conduct and hard work. The only thing that differentiates us from other organisations is the utmost importance which we give to customers' satisfaction," Pawan G. Aggarwal, the chief executive officer of the association, told the MBA students of the Haryana School of Business in the Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology (GJUST).

He said the team comprised of around 5,000 illiterate and semi-literate workers, including four women, who picked up and delivered nearly 200,000 lunch-boxes daily. The organisation received the ISO 9001 certification in 2000 for its service.

Without fail and irrespective of harsh weather, the dabbawalas every morning pick up lunch boxes (dabbas) from the homes of Mumbai's office workers and deliver these at their workplaces.

After lunch, they again pick up the empty boxes from offices and carry them back to the homes of the customers.

"Without any technological backup and logistical support, the dabbawalas perform with utmost precision. This organisation is the only one in India and the second in the world who had got six-sigma rating", said Aggarwal.

Dabbawalas earned the rating from Forbes Magazine in 1998, for their unprecedented record of only one error in 6 million transactions.