Parsimonious AHP-DEA Integrated Approach for Efficiency Evaluation of Production Processes

Abstract

This document proposes an innovative composite indicator to measure and control the performance of production processes. The aim is to provide a tool for controlling the efficiency of the processes, assessed in relation to the number and the impact of occurring “errors”, which can take into account the opinion of experts in the specific domain. This allows for the definition of a more realistic and effective decision support system. Our composite indicator is based on an integrated approach based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and a new multi-criteria method such as Parsimonious Analytical Hierarchy Process (PAHP). The results obtained on a real test case, based on the automotive production domain, show that the composite indicator built with PAHP-DEA allows us to have clear evidence of the efficiency level of each process and the overall impact of errors on all the processes under evaluation. From a methodological point of view, we have for the first time combined the new thrifty AHP with the DEA. From an application point of view, this work introduces a new tool capable of evaluating the efficiency of production processes in an extremely competitive sector, exploiting the knowledge of the experts in the domain of errors, internal processes and the dynamics that occur.