Introduction To The Theory And Application Of Data Envelopment Analysis

1 DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was initially developed as a method for assessing the comparative efficiencies of organisational units such as the branches of a bank, schools, hospital departments or restaurants. The key in each case is that they perform feature which makes the units comparable the same function in terms of the kinds of resource they use and the types of output they produce. For example all bank branches to be compared would typically use staff and capital assets to effect income generating activities such as advancing loans, selling financial products and carrying out banking transactions on behalf of their clients. The efficiencies assessed in this context by DEA are intended to reflect the scope for resource conservation at the unit being assessed without detriment to its outputs, or alternatively, the scope for output augmentation without additional resources. The efficiencies assessed are comparative or relative because they reflect scope for resource conservation or output augmentation at one unit relative to other comparable benchmark units rather than in some absolute sense. We resort to relative rather than absolute efficiencies because in most practical contexts we lack sufficient information to derive the superior measures of absolute efficiency. DEA was initiated by Charnes Cooper and Rhodes in 1978 in their seminal paper Chames et al. (1978). The paper operationalised and extended by means of linear programming production economics concepts of empirical efficiency put forth some twenty years earlier by Farrell (1957).

This book represents a milestone in the progression of Data Envelop ment Analysis (DEA). It is the first reference text which includes a comprehensive review and comparative discussion of the basic DEA models. The development is anchored in a unified mathematical and graphical treatment and includes the most important modeling ex tensions. In addition, this is the first book that addresses the actual process of conducting DEA analyses including combining DEA and 1 parametric techniques. The book has three other distinctive features. It traces the applications driven evolution and diffusion of DEA models and extensions across disciplinary boundaries. It includes a comprehensive bibliography to serve as a source of references as well as a platform for further develop ments. And, finally, the power of DEA analysis is demonstrated through fifteen novel applications which should serve as an inspiration for future applications and extensions of the methodology. The origin of this book was a Conference on New Uses of DEA in 2 Management and Public Policy which was held at the IC Institute of the University of Texas at Austin on September 27-29, 1989. The conference was made possible through NSF Grant #SES-8722504 (A. Charnes and 2 W. W. Cooper, co-PIs) and the support of the IC Institute.

This volume systematically details both the basic principles and new developments in Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), offering a solid understanding of the methodology, its uses, and its potential. New material in this edition includes coverage of recent developments that have greatly extended the power and scope of DEA and have lead to new directions for research and DEA uses. Each chapter accompanies its developments with simple numerical examples and discussions of actual applications. The first nine chapters cover the basic principles of DEA, while the final seven chapters provide a more advanced treatment.

Introduction to Data Envelopment Analysis and Its Uses: With DEA-Solver Software and References has been carefully designed by the authors to provide a systematic introduction to DEA and its uses as a multifaceted tool for evaluating problems in a variety of contexts. The authors have been involved in DEA's development from the beginning. William Cooper (with Abraham Charnes and Edwardo Rhodes) is a founder of DEA. Lawrence Seiford and Kaoru Tone have been actively involved as researchers and practitioners from its earliest beginnings. All have been deeply involved in uses of DEA in practical applications as well as in the development of its basic theory and methodologies. The result is a textbook grounded in authority, experience and substance.

From the Foreword: 'This book is an excellent tool for practitioners who are interested in the merits and pitfalls of the technique.... (The author's) research is an example of inventiveness, diligence and accuracy' - Freerk A. Lootsma, Delft Institute of Technology Data envelopment Analysis is a Mathematical Programme for measuring performance efficiency of organizational units. The organizational units, termed as decision-making units (DMU) can be of any kind: manufacturing units, a set of schools, banks, hospitals, power plants, police stations, prisons, a set of firms etc. DEA has been unsuccessfully applied to measure the performance efficiency of these different kinds of DMUs which share a common characteristic - that they are non-profit organization where measurement of performance efficiency is difficult. DEA has been employed for assessing the relative performance of a set of firms that use a variety of identical inputs-say in the case of a school: quality of students, teachers, grants etc.,-to produce a variety of identical outputs-number of students who pass the final year, average grades obtained by the students in the final year etc. DEA assumes the performance of the DMUs by using the concepts of efficiency or productivity which is measured as the ratio of total outputs to total inputs. Also, the efficiencies estimated are relative to the best performing DMU or DMUs. The best performing DMU is given a score of 100% and the performance of other DMUs vary between 0 -100%.

Introduction to Data Envelopment Analysis and Its Uses: With DEA-Solver Software and References has been carefully designed by the authors to provide a systematic introduction to DEA and its uses as a multifaceted tool for evaluating problems in a variety of contexts. The authors have been involved in DEA's development from the beginning. William Cooper (with Abraham Charnes and Edwardo Rhodes) is a founder of DEA. Lawrence Seiford and Kaoru Tone have been actively involved as researchers and practitioners from its earliest beginnings. All have been deeply involved in uses of DEA in practical applications as well as in the development of its basic theory and methodologies. The result is a textbook grounded in authority, experience and substance.

This book presents the underlying theory, model development, and applications of network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in a systematic way. The field of network DEA extends and complements conventional DEA by considering not only inputs and outputs when measuring system efficiency, but also the internal structure of the system being analyzed. By analyzing the efficiency of individual internal components, and more particularly by studying the effects of relationships among components which are modeled and implemented by means of various network structures, the “network DEA” approach is able to help identify and manage the specific components that contribute inefficiencies into the overall systems. This relatively new approach comprises an important analytical tool based on mathematical programming techniques, with valuable implications to production and operations management. The existing models for measuring the efficiency of systems of specific network structures are also discussed, and the relationships between the system and component efficiencies are explored. This book should be able to inspire new research and new applications based on the current state of the art. Performance evaluation is an important task in management, and is needed to (i) better understand the past accomplishments of an organization and (ii) plan for its future development. However, this task becomes rather challenging when multiple performance metrics are involved. DEA is a powerful tool to cope with such issues. For systems or operations composed of interrelated processes, managers need to know how the performances of the various processes evaluated and how they are aggregated to form the overall performance of the system. This book provides an advanced exposition on performance evaluation of systems with network structures. It explores the network nature of most production and operation systems, and explains why network analyses are necessary.

Using the neo-classical theory of production economics as the analytical framework, this book, first published in 2004, provides a unified and easily comprehensible, yet fairly rigorous, exposition of the core literature on data envelopment analysis (DEA) for readers based in different disciplines. The various DEA models are developed as nonparametric alternatives to the econometric models. Apart from the standard fare consisting of the basic input- and output-oriented DEA models formulated by Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes, and Banker, Charnes, and Cooper, the book covers developments such as the directional distance function, free disposal hull (FDH) analysis, non-radial measures of efficiency, multiplier bounds, mergers and break-up of firms, and measurement of productivity change through the Malmquist total factor productivity index. The chapter on efficiency measurement using market prices provides the critical link between DEA and the neo-classical theory of a competitive firm. The book also covers several forms of stochastic DEA in detail.