Efficiency Evaluation of Wheat Farming: A Network Data Envelopment Analysis Approach

Traditional data envelopment analysis (DEA) models deal with measurement of relative efficiency of decision making units (DMUs) in which multiple-inputs are consumed to produce multiple-outputs. One of the drawbacks of these models is neglecting internal processes of each system, which may have intermediate products and/or independent inputs and/or outputs. In this paper, some methods which are usable for network systems are briefly reviewed. A new unified model is also introduced which can be easily applied for performance measurement of all types of network production process. As an example, for the application of network DEA models, performance evaluation of wheat production in Iran provinces is considered and the results are compared.