A joint measurement of efficiency and effectiveness for ranking power distribution units in Iran: Integrated data envelopment analysis approach

In recent years, data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been widely used to assess both technical efficiency and technical effectiveness. Although a number of studies have focused on performance evaluation of power distribution units, this sort of studies are rare in Iran. This paper proposes an integrated slack-based measure (ISBM) approach to measure both technical efficiency and technical effectiveness of Iranian's power distribution units. The proposed SBM-DEA model represents both non-storable features of power distribution industry and production technologies in a unified framework. The proposed approach not only measures technical efficiency and effectiveness of power distribution units, but also estimates overall efficiency of distribution units.