Assessing bids of Greek public organizations service providers using data envelopment analysis

The existing framework for the procurement of products and services for the Greek Public Organizations describes specific criteria structure and fixed‐weighted formulas for the assessment of the provider’s bids. This assessment procedure suffers from specific shortcomings: it overestimates the price, it is very sensitive to small changes to performance indicators and especially for the services, is not able to incorporate variable price information. In this paper we develop a Data Envelopment Analysis model that overcomes the above mentioned shortcomings. It uses variable weights that are estimated in favor of each evaluated bid and are properly restricted to comply with the existing framework and to reflect criteria priorities. It also encounters ranges for prices that correspond to minimum and maximum expected number of service calls. For illustration purposes we provide a real case application for the assessment of courier service providers.