A New Approach for Solving Intuitionistic Fuzzy Data Envelopment Analysis Problems

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a mathematical technique based on linear programming applied to evaluate the efficiency of decision-making units dealing with multiple inputs and outputs. In classical DEA models, it is assumed that input and output data are accurate though real-world applications require considering inaccurate and ambiguous data. Moreover, linguistic forms may be intuitionistic in nature rather than fuzzy. We propose a novel approach to solve DEA models characterized by intuitionistic fuzzy data. The model is transformed into a linear programming problem with an intuitionistic fuzzy objective function, and an alphabetical technique is applied to solve it. The proposed approach is easy to implement, involving a lower number of calculations than more computationally demanding techniques introduced in the literature. It also provides a set of ranking results that are significantly correlated with those derived from the implementation of more complex techniques. Its applicability would allow to extend the analysis of intricate evaluation scenarios common to the standard DEA literature into intuitionistic fuzzy environments.