[FRIAM] CAS in Mumbai. At lunchtime.

[Robert Cordingley]

I noted too that the article said "The British introduced the service 
125 years ago after the city was flooded by workers from different 
regions." So what qualifies it as a CAS if there was intelligent design 
behind it?

Robert Cordingley

Tom Johnson wrote:
> Yes, it is a feature story, but the content -- and context -- is also 
> a wonderful, almost-perfect example of humans developing/evolving  
> Complex Adaptive Systems.
>
> Rai, Saritha. "In India, Grandma Cooks, They Deliver." __The New York 
> Times__ 29 May 2007. 29 May 2007 < 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/business/worldbusiness/29lunch.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/business/worldbusiness/29lunch.html?_r=1&oref=slogin>>. 
>
>
> "...In India, where many traditions are being rapidly overturned as a 
> result of globalization, the practice of eating a home-cooked meal for 
> lunch lives on. To achieve that in this sprawling urban amalgamation 
> of an estimated 25 million people, where long commutes by train and 
> bus are routine, Mumbai residents rely on an intricately organized, 
> labor-intensive operation that puts some automated high-tech systems 
> to shame. It manages to deliver tens of thousands of meals to 
> workplaces all over the city with near-clockwork precision. At the 
> heart of this unusual network is a chain of delivery men called 
> dabbawallas...."
>
> "The service is at once simple and complex. A network of wallas picks 
> up the boxes from customers' homes or from people who cook lunches to 
> order, then delivers the meals to a local railway station. The boxes 
> are hand-sorted for delivery to different stations in central Mumbai, 
> and then re-sorted and carried to their destinations. After lunch, the 
> service reverses, and the empty boxes are delivered back home.
>
> The secret of the system is in the colored codes painted on the side 
> of the boxes, which tell the dabbawallas where the food comes from and 
> which railway stations it must pass through on its way to a specific 
> office in a specific building in downtown Mumbai."
>
>
>
> -tj
> -- 
> ==========================================
> J. T. Johnson
> Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
> www.analyticjournalism.com <http://www.analyticjournalism.com>
> 505.577.6482(c)                                 505.473.9646(h)
> http://www.jtjohnson.com                 tom at jtjohnson.us 
> <mailto:tom at jtjohnson.us>
>
> "You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
> To change something, build a new model that makes the
> existing model obsolete."
>                                                    -- Buckminster Fuller
> ==========================================
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