A new exclusion approach for ranking efficient decision making units in data envelopment analysis

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a useful technique for performance evaluation and ranking of decision making units (DMUs). The case of variable returns to scale has not received enough attention in context of ranking in DEA. In this paper a new exclusion approach for ranking efficient decision making units in data envelopment analysis is presented. The relative distance of the efficient DMU under evaluation from the supporting hyperplane of the other DMUs is measured to provide an index to be used for ranking. The new approach can be seen as another way of using super-efficiency. Two numerical examples are provided to show the applicability of the new approach..