A note on DEA efficiency assessment using ideal point: An improvement of Wang and Luo's model

Abstract Evaluating the efficiency of organizational units continues to be a difficult problem to solve, especially when the multiplicity of inputs (resources, costs) and outputs (services, products) associated with these units is considered. This paper considers a previous article published by Wang and Luo [Y. Wang, Y. Luo, DEA efficiency assessment using ideal and anti-ideal decision-making units, Applied Mathematics and Computation 173 (2) (2006) 902–915] in the journal of Applied Mathematics and Computation where data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) are integrated in ranking of decision-making units (DMUs). Wang and Luo (2006) contribute to a very interesting topic by showing that the TOPSIS idea can be combined to DEA for a comprehensive ranking of DMUs. However, this paper finds that their approach is problematic in employing the negative ideal point (NIP) for DEA computation. Their ideal point based models rely on using conflicting efficiency concepts. We slightly revised the models so that a DEA analysis using TOPSIS idea can be performed. Numerical demonstration reveals that our approach produces a ranking result that is consistent with that in previous studies.