Date: September 18th, 2009
On reaching Ahmedabad, I scheduled a meeting with Jagan K. Mohan (JKM) Dasa swami, manager in charge of Akshaya Patra’s (AP) Gandhinagar operations. We agreed to meet on Friday to visit the Gandihinagar kitchen, located 30 miles from Ahmadabad. Kitchen operation starts as early as 3am and I got there at 6:30am. Upon arrival, JKM and I decided to observe operations first. It was interesting to note that everyone has to remove their shoes and use clean footwear before entering the operations to keep operations area hygienic. I observed three production areas each responsible for cooking rice, daal (soup) and roti (bread). I spoke with the supervisor in charge of each production units and used my camcorder to record the kitchen operations so that I could review the footage with my team back in USA. I also visited the area where the machines cut vegetables and prepare spices that are added to food during production. After spending two hours observing the cooking process, we decided to convene in the conference room to speak with supervisors from each section and other support department heads. At the end of another 2.5 hour conversation, I gained in-depth knowledge of typical AP operation and identified areas of improvement in regard to operations. At noon, I decided to call it a day and exchanged contact information with JKM.
Date: September 21st, 2009
My next destination was Banglore, located xxxx miles away from Ahmedabad. On Monday morning, I flew to Bangalore where I met my group mate Chinny at the airport. After two hours of car ride, we reached AP’s south Bangalore kitchen where we met Ms. Usha, our point of contact from AP. We checked in at the modest but comfortable guest house that AP kindly arranged for us and left to have a lunch meeting with Usha. Usha told us about her role, the overall organization structure and her tentative schedule for the next two days. Later in the evening, we met Ajay Parikh, Executive Director of Strategy for AP. Ajay explained the foundations overall vision and long term plans. After the meeting, Chinny and I decided to go to bed early that day because we had to get up at 4 am.
Date: September 22nd, 2009
The day started with visit of the on campus kitchen at 5:00 am! We briefly visited the on-campus kitchen in Bangalore which was similar to the one in Gujarat. We then traveled another 20 miles to AP’s North Bangalore kitchen, one of the largest kitchens in AP network. North Bangalore kitchen serves over 100,000 meals per day, five days a week and is 3 floors tall. We received warm greetings from the kitchen supervisor, and we spent the next two hours observing the 3 floors of operations that entailed cleaning, cooking and packing. Afterwards, we met the supervisor from each floor and discussed various details about their operations. Around 10:30am we left to go back to South Bangalore kitchen.
Upon reaching the kitchen campus, we met with Operations Manager for AP’s largest decentralized kitchen in Mathura. He explained how the decentralized model worked and what AP’s plans were with this type of cooking model. Usha had made arrangements for us to visit a nearby school where AP sends meals every day. We visited the school and met with the headmaster to take note of his inputs. We returned to kitchen campus and spent the next hour speaking to the transportation manager to understand the distribution system. We had a quick working lunch again discussing our observations with Usha. Next, we met the Nandnandan Dasa, head of design and process optimization. In 90 minutes, he shed light to many intriguing questions that had puzzled us. We then had another meeting scheduled with Ajay, whom we met the previous day. The three of us went through AP’s short term requirements that Ajay put together for us in a scope document. We discussed various initiatives that our AMR team could work on and how our AMR team will communicate with AP going forward.
After a marathon day of visits and meetings, Chinny and I sat down to compile our notes. We went through the scope document and created a summary for the other group members. By the time we finished, it was already 11 pm and we decided to call it a day as Chinny had a flight to catch in 5 hours.
Date: September 23rd, 2009
The next morning, I met Usha and asked her to put me in touch with head of operations in Jaipur, which has second largest decentralized kitchen. She connected me with the manager over the phone and we spoke briefly to gain more information about the Jaipur operation. After the phone call, I visited the on-campus kitchen operations to take few last minute notes. It was already 1:30pm, only 2 hours before my scheduled flight. I left for the airport after a short wrap-up meeting with Usha.
On my way to the airport, I wondered why smart people like Nandnadan Dasa (with a Masters in Industrial Engineering and amazing understanding process/operation design) decided to devote their entire life to a nonprofit organization like AP instead of acquiring wealth for themselves. Then, I remembered meeting precious school children on the previous day. Observing the children eat and happily interact with their friends was truly a satisfying moment. Now I know why everyone at AP is so excited and committed to their work. Putting a smile on a child’s face by providing his one and only meal of the day is priceless and is more rewarding than achieving any great corporate success!
