Evaluation of supply chain of a shipping company in Iran by a fuzzy relational network data envelopment analysis model

Abstract

The existing relational network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models evaluate the performance of Decision Making Units (DMUs) with precise data. Whereas, in the real-world applications, there are many Supply Chain (SC) networks with imprecise and vague figures. This paper develops a relational network DEA model for evaluating the performance of supply chains with fuzzy numbers. The proposed fuzzy model is capable of evaluating the performance of all kinds of network structures. A pair of two-level mathematical programs is utilized to convert the fuzzy relational network DEA to a conventional crisp one. For this purpose, the upper and lower bounds of the efficiencies are calculated by a-cut concept. The proposed model is implemented using actual data from the supply chain of an international shipping company in Iran.