This book offers new transparent views and step-by-step methods for performance evaluation of a set of units using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The book has twelve practical chapters. Elementary concepts and definitions are gradually built in Chapters 1-6 based upon four examples of one input and one output factors, two input factors, two output factors, and four input and three output factors. Simultaneously, the mathematical foundations using linear programming are also introduced without any prerequisites. A reader with basic knowledge of mathematics and computers is able to understand the contents of the book. In addition, to prevent pre-judgment about the available concepts and definitions in the DEA literature, some new phrases are introduced and, after elucidating each phrase in detail in Chapters 1-6, they are reintroduced for industry-wide accuracy in Chapter 7. After that, some of the more advanced DEA topics are illustrated in Chapters 8-12, such as: production-planningproblems, output-input ratio analysis, efficiency over different time periods, Malmquist efficiency indexes, and a delta neighborhood model.
A clear overview of many of the elementary and advanced concepts of DEA is provided, including Technical Efficiency, Relative Efficiency, Cost/Revenue/Profit Efficiency, Price/Overall Efficiency, the DEA axioms, the mathematical background to measure technical efficiency and overall efficiency, the multiplier/envelopment form of basic DEA models in input/output-orientation, the multiplier/envelopment of Additive DEA model, the multiplier/envelopment of slacks-based models, and others. The book also covers a variety of DEA techniques, input-output ratio analysis, the natural relationships between DEA frontier and the ratio of output to input factors, production-planning problems, planning ideas with a centralized decision-making unit, context-dependent DEA, Malmquist efficiency index, efficiency over different time periods, and others. End-of-chapter exercises are provided for each chapter.
Dariush Khezrimotlagh is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science & Mathematics at Penn State University, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the College of Arts and Science at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. He was previously an Assistant Professor of Statistics at the University of Malaya, Malaysia and Visiting Researcher at University Technology Malaysia, Center for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (UTM-CIAM). He served as the Director of the Studies and Information Center, Commercial Aviation Organization in Iran, and has more than twenty years of experience as an educator. He earned his MS in Pure Mathematics and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics, specializing in Operations Research and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). His most recent research areas include DEA, Performance Evaluation, Benchmarking, Ranking and Statistics.
Yao Chen is Professor of Operations Management, Manning School of Business, University of Massachusetts at Lowell. She is also a distinguished Professor in College of Auditing and Evaluation, Nanjing Audit University, China. Her current research interests include efficiency and productivity issues of information systems, information technology’s impact on operations performance, and methodology development of Data Envelopment Analysis. Her research are published in journals such as European Journal of Operational Research, OMEGA, Computers and Operations Research, Annals of Operations Research, International Journal of Production Economics, and others.
