Measuring the Performance of Pallet Rental Companies: Integer-Valued DEA Models With Generalized Reference Sets

Abstract

The development of the pallet rental industry is moving at a rapid pace. However, there is no literature on the performance evaluation of pallet rental companies except our previous study. This paper contributes to extending our previous super-efficiency integer-valued DEA (data envelope analysis) model to a group of integer-valued DEA models with generalized reference sets (G-IDEA). According to the proposed approach, the reference sets for decision-making units (DMUs) are composed of proper efficient sample units instead of efficient DMUs. These sample units, which may or may not be the same as DMUs, can be selected by decision-makers according to their demand. The advantages of the G-IDEA models are as follows: (1) they can be applied to find the projections of pallet rental companies with real-valued and integer-valued variables on the efficient frontier; (2) they are able to help the decision-makers in inefficient pallet rental companies make a step by step efficiency improvement scheme. Particularly, we develop a non-oriented integer-valued DEA model with generalized reference sets (NG-IDEA). The NG-IDEA model can be used to figure out how to improve the performance of inefficient pallet rental companies by simultaneously decreasing inputs and increasing outputs. The proposed models are applied to the performance evaluation of ten pallet rental companies. The results of the case study prove the effectiveness of our models. Furthermore, some valuable suggestions on how to improve the efficiency of inefficient pallet rental companies are presented based on the results.

Management and Logistics of Returnable Transport Items: A Review Analysis on the Pallet Supply Chain

“…The authors of [34] show how the efficiency of a pallet pooling system can be improved by using spatial data mining, which can help with extracting knowledge about the resource used and the distribution of customers. The authors of [35,36] propose a data envelope analysis model that can be used to assess the performance of pallet rental companies. The network design problem for a pallet pool is studied by [37], who apply an analytical model to optimize the location of pallet service centers.…”

Additive integer-valued data envelopment analysis with missing data: A multi-criteria evaluation approach

“…This section applies the proposed approach to analyze the efficiency of pallet rental companies. There is limited quantitative research in the pallet rental industry because the data related to this industry are not publicly available [61,62]. Therefore, it is necessary to propose an approach to evaluate the performance of pallet rental companies when some important data are missing, and this research is important to the pallet rental industry.…”

“…There are twelve pallet rental companies in the dataset including Commonwealth Handling Equipment Pool (CHEP), Intelligent Global Pooling Systems (iGPS), PECO Pallet, H & H Pallet Leasing, La Palette Rouge (LPR), Pooling Partner, Contraloadad, Nippon Pallet Pool System, Japan Pallet Rental (JPR), Korea Pallet Pool (KPP), Loscam, and Jituo Pallet Pool. Each company uses two integer-valued inputs (employees x 1i and pallets x 2i ) to produce one realvalued desirable output (annual revenue y 1i ) and one real-valued undesirable output (annual pallet loss rate z 1i ), and the data related to these companies in 2018 are shown in Table 1 [43,62]. The data about x 1i , x 2i , and y 1i (unit: million U.S. dollars) are obtained from the official websites of these companies as well as other relevant websites, and the values of z 1i (unit: percent) are estimated by managers in these companies.…”

The New Model of Game Cross Efficiency DEA With Index Groups and an Application to Land Utilization Efficiency

“…In the process of solving the ratio, DEA fulfills a non-parameter estimation [2][3][4]. Since DEA method is feasible, practicable and effective, it attracts much attention and is applied to many fields such as, the root cause identification for vibration and noise failure of washing machine [5], the evaluation on the performance of pallet rental companies [6,7], the performance evaluation on system of logistics enterprises [8], the selection of the most suitable locations to host wind power plants [9], etc.…”