Data envelopment analysis with neutrosophic inputs and outputs

Since the recent appearance of neutrosophic theory as a generalization of fuzzy and intuitionistic fuzzy theories, many multicriteria decision methods have adopted this theory to deal with incomplete and indeterminate data. However, it has not yet been applied to the data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology. Therefore, this study presents a DEA model with triangular neutrosophic inputs and outputs that considers the truth, indeterminacy, and falsity degrees of each data value. As an alternative, a parametric approach based on what we term the variation degree of a triangular neutrosophic number is developed. This approach transforms a neutrosophic DEA model into an interval DEA model that can be solved using one of many existing techniques. Interval efficiency scores obtained from our numerical example show the flexibility and authenticity of the proposed approach.