Introduction to DEA-Data Envelopment Analysis

The objective of this tutorial on Data Envelopment Analysis is to introduce this non-parametric analysis method to the relative efficiency of Organisational Units. DEA, introduced in the U.S.A. in 1978, allows the determination of the Organisational Units that have maximum efficiency in the Pareto sense. As a result of the analysis, information can also be gathered as to the reduction of Input or increase in Output necessary for inefficient organisational units to reach their optimum, and the characterization of inefficient organisational units as a linear combination of those entities classified as optimum. DEA techniques have been used mainly in the evaluation of the efficiency of public sector organizations and in situations in which profit alone is not a sufficient criteria to evaluate performance.