Implementing Fuzzy DEA into the PEM Model for Performance Evaluation of Project-based Organizations: A case study

Project-based organizations in upstream industries hold a large share of national resources and play an important role in the development of a country. Performance evaluation of project-based organizations can help managers to use inputs effectively and smooth their way to achieving goals. There are many qualitative and quantitative indices to performance evaluation of project-based organizations. Efficiency calculation through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a common index for performance assessment in such firms. In the traditional DEA model crisp data is needed while, in the real world, most of the data are imprecise and uncertain. A major cause of uncertainty related to the non-quantifiable, incomplete, and unachievable information that caused fuzzy logic and fuzzy sets merge in different models like DEA. The main idea of the present study is to combine quantitative and qualitative approaches in performance appraisal to take advantage of both and achieve more accurate results; therefore, in this paper, a hybrid model based on Fuzzy Data Envelopment Analysis (FDEA) and Project Excellence Model (PEM) is proposed for performance evaluation in project-based organizations. First, performance assessment by the PEM model of Fuzzy data is accomplished. Then, implementing Fuzzy DEA into the PEM model is performed in which the inputs and outputs of the FDEA model are the PEM model criteria. The proposed hybrid model is used to evaluate 30 petrochemical companies in Iran. The comparison of the results of both models indicates a correlation coefficient of almost 0.90 at the significance level of 0.01 that shows an appropriate correlation between the two models.