Title: Fuzzy trade-offs in data envelopment analysis

Authors: Mohammadreza Rafiee Sani; Mohammadreza Alirezaee

Addresses: School of Mathematics, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran ' School of Mathematics, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran; Centre for Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Abstract: Production trade-offs represent simultaneous and possible changes to the inputs and outputs in the technology under consideration. However, since trade-offs are illative and subjective, in many real applications, the data of production trade-offs cannot be precisely measured. Occasionally, a crisp trade-off cannot reflect desirable judgment of expert. This paper develops the trade-off approach in data envelopment analysis (DEA) using imprecise trade-offs represented by fuzzy sets. We develop some fuzzy versions of trade-off DEA models by using some ranking methods based on the comparison of α-cuts. We show in numerical examples how our models become useful for detecting sensitive trade-offs. In other words, our approach can be seen as extension of the trade-off approach that provides users with models, which represent real evaluation of decision making units (DMU) with good judgments as possible trade-offs.

Keywords: fuzzy trade-offs; trade-off approach; data envelopment analysis; DEA; value judgment; fuzzy sets; operational research.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2017.087828

International Journal of Operational Research, 2017 Vol.30 No.4, pp.540 - 553

Received: 20 Jun 2014
Accepted: 30 Mar 2015

Published online: 06 Nov 2017 *

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