Efficiency Decomposition in Network Data Envelopment Analysis

When the number of Decision-Making Units (DMUs) is not large enough compared to the total number of input parameters and outputs, traditional Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Network Data Envelopment Analysis (NDEA) models often produce solutions that identify many DMUs as efficient, in addition to obtaining unrealistic weight distributions. In fact, this poor discrimination power and unrealistic weight distribution presented by DEA and NDEA models remain a major challenge, leading to the development of models to improve this performance. Thus, this paper proposes a Multiple Criteria Network Data Envelopment Analysis (MCNDEA), based on relational NDEA models. The idea of this model is to be used in network structures. To test the MCNDEA model, one a real instance linked to an evaluation problem of academic departments of a public university was used. Other instances were also used to validate the proposed MCNDEA, and these tests are included in the supplementary files. Finally, it should be noted that, in summary, the model proposed in this article had greater discrimination power of the analyzed DMUs, being able to identify the most efficient departments in each of the considered stages, besides pointing out to the University Management points of improvement regarding the best use of its resources for each department.

Food security is a global challenge. With rising world population and demand for food being compounded by resource and arable land constraints, raising the efficiency of food production and use has become increasingly important. While much of the research on food security is focused on farm efficiency and productivity, most neglect post-harvest (PH) handling which is critical in determining the availability of food. In this study, we employ the network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model to evaluate the PH efficiency of milling, using data from Kenya’s rice processing industry. The results show lower efficiency scores when using a network DEA model, which reflects its greater discriminatory power when compared to the standard DEA approach. The study also quantified sources of productive efficiency using a fractional regression model and identified storage space and distance to market as having an impact on drying efficiency; while experience, age of mill, servicing and energy type influenced milling efficiency. The results suggest that policy makers should focus on investing in drying technologies and storage facilities to improve drying efficiency. To improve milling efficiency, policy recommendations include enhancing millers’ access to better technologies, investing in reliable sources of energy and providing PH handling workshops to reduce PH losses.

An efficiency measurement model of a university faculty is proposed with additional new sub-functions that produce new output variables, based on the network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model for systems with a hierarchical structure.For production systems composed of hierarchical processes, the system efficiency is well represented as the aggregated performance of the components involved in the system. It is identified that the conventional DEA model ignores internal process activities in a university. Therefore, an improved DEA model based on a network structure that accounts for more activities in a university is proposed to measure its overall efficiency. The impact of major functions of a university are taken into account to represent the output variables in assessing the efficiency. Currently, collaboration activities have been given more attention, so, this variable is suggested as a new output for the hierarchical production system. In order to show the practicality of the model, a hypothetical set of data of 14 faculties has been used as a numerical example. The results show that none of the faculties is relatively efficient since its functions were found to be inefficient. The proposed model enables to help the management of university faculties to identify weaknesses of each function and thus to plan for suitable actions on improving the overall performance of the university.

Accurate measurement of regional efficiency is a prerequisite for effective management. Prior studies have expanded on the overall "black box" evaluation with two stages of research and development (R&D) and commercialization, opening up the internal structure of the regional innovation process, but ignoring the independent innovation activities of universities, research institutes, and firms in the R&D stage. We construct a mixed structure with two stages, three actors, and four subsystems, and conduct an empirical analysis of China's provincial samples from 2017 to 2019 by using the network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model. Results show that the efficiency of the R&D stage at the provincial level is generally higher than that of the commercialization stage. However, the three subsystems of the R&D stage perform poorly. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient suggests that there is a significantly positive correlation between total regional efficiency and commercialization. In addition, we use the k-means method to divide 27 provinces into three clusters, setting a more appropriate improvement benchmark for inefficient provinces. Based on enlightenment of regional tobacco industry, we put forward some proposals for specific stage and specific subsystem.

Energy efficiency of China's industry sector: An adjusted network DEA (data envelopment analysis)-based decomposition analysis

Assessing the performance of tourism supply chains by using the hybrid network data envelopment analysis model

This paper deals with urban sustainable development in China. We propose a network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model with a slack-based measure (SBM) to analyze the eco-efficiency of 284 Chinese cities, enabling us to find a way to open the “black box” in conventional DEA models and introduce social well-being factors into the model, and depict the role of local government in providing public service and improving social well-beings. We set up a framework of urban development by dividing the process of into two steps. The first stage is a production system translating inputs and natural resources into GDP and waste production, which will be inputs to the second stage for distribution and consumption to realize social welfare and environmental protection. The results show eco-efficiency of Chinese cities experienced a significant decrease from 2005 to 2016, which should be mainly attributed to the distribution and consumption processes. Structural differences are described by regions, administrative level and clusters. These results are compared with an existing urban sustainability index system developed by McKinsey and an ANOVA approach is conducted to reveal differences between cities across regions and clusters. This article sheds new light on the understanding of urban sustainable construction and development in China regarding the service performance of local government.

Urban health efficiency is influenced by both urban planning decisions and the functioning of the public health system. However, there is currently a lack of effective methods to simultaneously examine urban planning and public health when assessing urban health efficiency. This study proposes a two-stage network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model for evaluating urban health efficiency. The urban planning and public health sectors act as interconnected stages where the public facilities and living quality are mediating variables. The urban health efficiencies of 303 Japanese cities are examined using the proposed model, showing that most Japanese cities still have room for urban planning improvement with pure technical efficiency ranging between 0.7 and 0.9. At the same time, most public health sectors of Japanese cities reach pure technical efficiencies larger than 0.95 but are limited by the scale efficiency. Further analysis points out that public health sectors are in decreasing-return-to-scale, meaning that excessive urban scale adversely affects urban health efficiency. Furthermore, cities that joined the Alliance for Healthy Cities (AFHC) performed better on average, suggesting that information sharing and national and international networking can boost urban health. The study shows that the proposed two-stage network DEA model can be applied to analyze urban health efficiency and identify the impact of technology and urban scale in different stages.

The rapid development of the aviation industry has brought about the deterioration of the climate, which makes airline efficiency become a hot issue of social concern. As an important nonparametric method, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), has been widely applied in efficiency evaluation. This paper examines 130 papers published in the period of 1993–2020 to summarize the literature involving the special application of DEA models in airline efficiency. The paper begins with an overall review of the existing literature, and then the radial DEA, nonradial DEA, network DEA, dynamic DEA, and DEA models with undesirable outputs applied in airline efficiency are introduced. The main advantages and disadvantages of the above models are summarized, and the drivers of airline efficiency are analyzed. Finally, the literature review ends up with future research directions and conclusions.

Comprehensive performance evaluation of banking branches: A three-stage slacks-based measure (SBM) data envelopment analysis

Recently, network data envelopment analysis (NDEA) models have been developed to evaluate the efficiency of decision making units (DMUs) with internal structures. The network structures range from a simple two-stage process to a complex system. Looking through the literature on two-stage network structures, we see that Li et al. (2012) extended a model by assuming that the inputs to the second stage include both the outputs from the first stage and additional inputs to the second stage. In the current study, a model is proposed to evaluate the performance of these types of general two-stage network structures. To this end, we provide a linear model using fractional programming. In fact, previous models were often nonlinear models which were solved with heuristic methods. But, since the model presented in this paper is a linear model, then it can be solved easily as a linear programming problem. In order to clarify the newly proposed approach of this study, it has been applied to a case of regional Research and Development (R&D) system related to 30 provincial level regions in China and results have been compared with the heuristic method of Li et al. (2012).

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of various models of Network Data Envelopment Analysis (NDEA) implemented across different regions globally to address the challenges of enhancing the electric power industry. Given the industry's critical role in sustainable development and economic growth, understanding and improving its efficiency is of paramount importance. To ensure a rigorous and systematic review, the study adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, which provided a standard guideline for the systematic process of data collection. About 19 scholarly papers were obtained from the Scopus databases, covering a range of research studies published over 11 years from 2012 to 2023. These papers encompassed a diverse range of studies, each offering distinct insights into the application of NDEA models within the electric power industry. This extension model of DEA was chosen due to the complex network of the electric power industry, which typically consists of multiple subsystems: generation, transmission, and distribution. The selected papers were systematically classified by publication type and specific network systems, providing a detailed understanding of how the field has evolved. The results indicated that NDEA offered a valuable methodology for assessing efficiency and held substantial potential to guide future research aimed at addressing complex efficiency challenges in the sector. The study underscored the need to continue exploring and refining NDEA models to advance efforts toward a more efficient and sustainable electric power industry.

In this work, the network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model was used to divide the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in colleges and universities into two stages, which makes up for the lack of process measurement in a single DEA model. Also, the relationship between the transformation efficiency of scientific and technological achievements in universities and the development of a low-carbon economy was quantitatively analyzed. The research results show that: (1) the transformation efficiency of scientific and technological achievements of universities in China is increasing year by year and which is significantly higher in the eastern region than that in the central and western regions. (2) The efficiency of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements of the university promotes the reduction of carbon emission intensity and the development of a low-carbon economy, indicating that the improvement of the transformation efficiency of scientific and technological achievements of the university has a good role in promoting the ecological environment protection. However, compared with the developed countries, the quantity and quality of science and technology supply and ecological environment protection in China’s universities are still insufficient. In this regard, the development suggestions are put forward from the aspects of government policy guidance, professional talent cooperation and strengthening the docking between universities and industrial low-carbon economic development. The purpose of this paper is to promote the development of a low-carbon economy by improving the efficiency of scientific and technological achievements transformation in universities, to achieve the goal of ecological environment protection.

In this paper, we present for the first time the on-field production process of soccer teams as a mixed (serial and parallel) structure two-stage network system. According to this, the first stage consists of two distinct sub-processes (offense and defense) that operate in parallel. These respectively use players’ offensive and defensive actions as inputs to produce two different intermediate measures, namely, goals scored and prevention of goals conceded. These, in turn, are the inputs of the second stage (points’ accumulation sub-process) that produces accumulated points. Furthermore, based on a two-stage network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model, we estimate the offensive, defensive, and athletic efficiency of soccer teams during a league season. According to our proposed framework, these three different efficiency scores are provided (for each soccer team under evaluation) by a single linear programming problem. For this purpose, aggregate-over-games statistics from the 2013–14 Greek premier soccer league are used.

Uncertain network data envelopment analysis with undesirable outputs to evaluate the efficiency of electricity power production and distribution processes