Ranking Network-Structured Decision-Making Units and Its Application in Bank ‎Branches

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a method used for measuring the efficiency of decision-making units‎. Unlike the standard models‎, ‎which assume decision-making units to be a black box‎, ‎network data envelopment analysis focuses on the internal structure of these units‎. ‎Some researchers have developed a two-stage method where all the inputs are entirely used in the first stage‎, ‎producing outputs which are subsequently fed as inputs to the second stage‎. ‎These indices are introduced as intermediate indices‎. ‎Here‎, it is assumed that congruent decision-making units have a two-stage serial structure‎. ‎In this structure‎, ‎the first stage and second stages act as the supplier and the consumer of resources respectively‎. ‎Two ranking models based on the efficiency cloud and the common set of weights concepts were developed for ranking network-structured decision-making units‎. ‎In the practical example presented in this study‎, ‎۲۵ bank branches were ranked using the two-stage method.‎‎‎