Lesson from distribution of PANWALA

One day i was waiting for my friend at the Sarai Kale Khan bus stop in Delhi, I was feeing thirsty. Looking around , I noticed two panwalas who had displayed a single layer of bottles of water called Hi-Life, manufactured by a delhi based co.

I asked the panwalas why he only this brand of water. Good co., he replied, excellent water, i probe further - why not other cos.?? Bisleri? Aquafina? Kinley? Don't their vans come here? That got him talking and strngely enough, he took it upon himself to explain situation to me, even ignoring the few customers.

Sarai Kale Khan is a major bus terminus and in winter, even this panwala sells a couple of bottles each day, others who are located closer to the terminus must be selling many more - at least ten bottles a day each. Expect that number to quadruple in the summer.

The summer is that while companies loke Cca Cola , Pepsico and Bisleri send vans weekly and deposit bottles on credit, it is upto the panwala to take care of the bottles for a week,If the bottle gets dity or scratched while packing up, people don't buy. The two panwalas i saw displayed ten bottles ech . Where Hi-Life beats the big cos. is that they have a man stationed at the terminus, on a bike, who distributes these bottles on credit every morning and takes them back every night. All the shopkeepers know he is there, so they just deposit the cash and carry. At night, they return the bottles for cash. They don't need to worry about packing the bottles and taking care of them for rest of the week. Consequently, all the shopkeepers keep only Hi-Life.

Supply Chain of Panwala (contd..)

Hello friends in continuation of my last post regarding supply chain of panwalas, the information which i have collected till now is -

1) They are having more than 8 to 10 varieties of pan leaves eg. Mahoba pan, Maghai pan, Jagannathi pan, Sophia pan, Sanchi pan etc.

2) They are having more than 100 varieties of ingredients to put into the pan like Katha, chuna, supari, tambaku, gulkand, rasbhari, laung, ilaichi, sauf etc.

3) All these ingredients are depends on taste and preference of consumer.

As i personally visited KESHAV PAN BHANDER in Lanka, Varanasi (famous for PANs) that they purchase the pan leaves in bulk through auction from the supplier in the local mandi of varanasi. These suppliers have purchased the pan leaves from farmers of various locations in India and bringing them to the local markets of the particular city.

After purchasing of the pan leaves they put these leaves in air tight room for some time period to make the colour of pan leaves bit yellow, then they use it for direct selling to the consumer. They can use these pan leaves for the month long period because of the good warehousing system they have with them. In this case the supply chain will work as Manufacturer is Farmer, Distributer and seller will be the Supplier of the pan leaves in the local market, Buyer is the Panwala and last but not the least Consumer is the Customer of the panwala.

As far as the ingredients are concern, they purchase these from the local market depends on the regular demand of the material by the consumer. They keep the raw material depending upon the perishability of the ingredient also. Hope i have put in some focus on the supply chain of panwala and any new thing you have experienced then your comments are always welcome.

Supply Chain of Panwala

Hey friends i am thinking about the supply chain of panwala's on which no one has focused yet. As if we go to any panwala and ask for any variety of pan or any ingredient to put into the pan , he (panwala) always says yes. So what kind of inventory level they are maintaining with them and how and on what proportion they keep the raw materials with them. More than 100 ingredients are there which are used in different varieties of pan, so the thing is that- how they procure such a high quantity of ingredients and distribute them in a better manner.............lets think!!

Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the control of materials, information and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Supply Chain Management involves coordinating and integrating these flows both within and among companies. The ultimate goal of any effective supply chain mangement system is to reduce inventory(with the assumption that products are avaible when needed).