Data Envelopment Analysis Models and Software Packages for Academic Purposes

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a popular technique used in measuring the performance of an industry. DEA has wide applications in agriculture, manufacturing, health care, transportation, education, energy and environment, as well as banking and finance. However, many students and academicians are in dilemma in finding the appropriate software to execute a particular DEA model. In recent years, different DEA software packages have been developed by some universities and companies for both academic and commercial purposes. The software packages offered wide varieties of most recent DEA models that could be used in science and technology. Some of these software packages are free for academic users while others are commercialised. In this study, nine different DEA software packages were reviewed. Among them, only three are free for academic purposes while four have been commercialized. One of the former is still in the development stage, but expected to be available soon

Calculating Super Efficiency of DMUs for Ranking Units in Data Envelopment Analysis Based on SBM Model

There are a number of methods for ranking decision making units (DMUs), among which calculating super efficiency and then ranking the units based on the obtained amount of super efficiency are both valid and efficient. Since most of the proposed models do not provide the projection of Pareto efficiency, a model is developed and presented through this paper based on which in the projection of Pareto-efficient is obtained, in addition to calculating the amount of super efficiency. Moreover, the model is unit invariant, and is always feasible and makes the amount of inefficiency effective in ranking

Analysis of efficiency and profitability of franchise services

The present study analyses the relative efficiency of franchise services and characterises the best companies, confirming the relationship between efficiency and profit. These companies are from the trade and other services sector , the main group of service-providing companies in the Spanish economy. The methodology calls for first comparing the relative efficiency of franchisers and ownership enterprises. Second, the focus turns to the most efficient franchise services, using a super-efficiency model to rank them. The paper then goes on to cover the analysis of the main characteristics of the best franchise enterprises, the number of own establishments in a franchise business and the profitability of the company. This paper presents arguments as to why companies from the trade and other services sector are included. The main conclusion is that, whilst the number of establishments is irrelevant in achieving greater efficiency, many of the most efficient enterprises have high returns.García Martin, CJ.; Medal Bartual, A.; Peris-Ortiz, M. (2014). Analysis of efficiency and profitability of franchise services. Service Industries Journal. 34(9):796-810. doi:10.1080/02642069.2014.905921S79681034

Sustainable Business Model With Minimum Generation of Waste Using Optimum Resources: An Empirical Research in Sponge Iron Sector in India

Environmental management through resource conservation helps in industrial waste management through cleaner production and also is an issue of sustainable business practice. But, there are limited industry-specific studies on sustainable business practices and even the existing studies are focused on few regions of the world. Therefore the first step in formulation of the research problem was to assess the consumption of different raw materials and production of wastes by the sponge iron industry sector. The focus of the study was identification and evaluation of the industrial process to capture the implications of sustainable use of resources which may help the industries to minimise waste generation through optimum use of natural resources. To be more specific, it was considered that the first step in addressing the issue of sustainable development in business practice is making industrial operations more cost effective through efficient use of resources and minimisation of generation of waste through recycling and reuse of waste. Furthermore, the study ranked the surveyed industries according to their resource efficiency using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and evolved sustainable business model for operationalizing the above concept for sponge iron industrial sector. Further a curve fitting application, taking dolochar generation along Y axis and consumption of power along X axis, was carried out to check whether the linear model is the best fit model for prediction of dolochar generated in a process. The findings showed that minimum generation of waste can be explained in a better way using optimum power and iron ore