Abstract: This paper is concerned with the comparison of two popular non-parametric methodologies—data envelopment analysis and artificial neural networks—as tools for assessing performance. Data envelopment analysis has been established since 1978 as a superior alternative to traditional parametric methodologies, such as regression analysis, for assessing performance. Neural networks have recently been proposed as a method for assessing performance. In this paper, we use a simulated production technology of two inputs and one output for testing the success of the two methods for assessing efficiency. The two methods are also compared on their practical use as performance measurement tools on a set of bank branches, having multiple input and output criteria. The results demonstrate that, despite their differences, both methods offer a useful range of information regarding the assessment of performance.

Abstract: There have been many efficiency frontier analysis methods reported in the literature. However, each of these methodologies has its strength as well as major limitations. This study proposes a Meta heuristic approach based on adaptive neural network (ANN) technique, fuzzy C-means and numerical taxonomy (NT) for measuring efficiency as a complementary tool for the common techniques of the efficiency studies in the previous studies. Homogenous test is done by NT. It is used to determine if the DMUs are homogenous or not. The proposed computational methods are able to find a stochastic frontier based on a set of input-output observational data and do not require explicit assumptions about the functional structure of the stochastic frontier. In this algorithm, for calculating the efficiency scores, a similar approach to za has been used. Moreover, the effect of the return to scale of decision making unit (DMU) on its efficiency is included and the unit used for the correction is selected by notice of its scale (under constant return to scale assumption). Also in non homogenous situation, for increasing DMUs’ homogeneousness, fuzzy C-means method is used to cluster DMUs. Two examples using real data are presented for illustrative purposes. Homogenous test result is positive in the first example, which deals with power generation sectors, and is negative in the second example dealing auto industries of various developed countries. Overall, we find that the proposed integrated algorithm based on ANN, fuzzy C-means and numerical taxonomy provides more robust results and identifies more efficient units than the conventional methods since better performance patterns are explored.

Abstract: Engineers have widely applied the Taguchi method, a traditional approach for robust experimental design, to a variety of quality engineering problems for enhancing system robustness. However, the Taguchi method is unable to deal with dynamic multiresponse owing to increasing complexity of the product or design process. Although several alternative approaches have been presented to resolve this problem, they cannot effectively treat situations in which the control factors have continuous values. This study incorporates desirability functions into a hybrid neural network/genetic algorithm approach to optimize the parameter design of dynamic multiresponse with continuous values of parameters. The objective is to find the optimal combination of control factors to simultaneously maximize robustness of each response. The proposed approach is based on three stages which (1) use neural networks for constructing a response function model of a dynamic multiresponse system, (2) use exponential desirability functions for evaluating overall performance of a specific factor combination, and (3) use a genetic algorithm to optimize parameter design. Effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated with a simulated example. Analysis results reveal that the approach has higher performance than the traditional experimental design.

Abstract: In this study, differential evolution algorithm (DE) is proposed to train a wavelet neural network (WNN). The resulting network is named as differential evolution trained wavelet neural network (DEWNN). The efficacy of DEWNN is tested on bankruptcy prediction datasets viz. US banks, Turkish banks and Spanish banks. Further, its efficacy is also tested on benchmark datasets such as Iris, Wine and Wisconsin Breast Cancer. Moreover, Garson’s algorithm for feature selection in multi layer perceptron is adapted in the case of DEWNN. The performance of DEWNN is compared with that of threshold accepting trained wavelet neural network (TAWNN) [Vinay Kumar, K., Ravi, V., Mahil Carr, & Raj Kiran, N. (2008). Software cost estimation using wavelet neural networks. Journal of Systems and Software] and the original wavelet neural network (WNN) in the case of all data sets without feature selection and also in the case of four data sets where feature selection was performed. The whole experimentation is conducted using 10-fold cross validation method. Results show that soft computing hybrids viz., DEWNN and TAWNN outperformed the original WNN in terms of accuracy and sensitivity across all problems. Furthermore, DEWNN outscored TAWNN in terms of accuracy and sensitivity across all problems except Turkish banks dataset.

Abstract: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is one of the most widely used methods in the measurement of the efficiency and productivity of Decision Making Units (DMUs). DEA for a large dataset with many inputs/outputs would require huge computer resources in terms of memory and CPU time. This paper proposes a neural network back-propagation Data Envelopment Analysis to address this problem for the very large scale datasets now emerging in practice. Neural network requirements for computer memory and CPU time are far less than that needed by conventional DEA methods and can therefore be a useful tool in measuring the efficiency of large datasets. Finally, the back-propagation DEA algorithm is applied to five large datasets and compared with the results obtained by conventional DEA.