Supplier selection in the public procurement sector via a data envelopment analysis approach

Abstract

The paper deals with the strategic issue of the supplier selection in the public procurement context. We consider the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), the most widespread method for supplier selection in the literature for private organizations. We modify the so-called cross-efficiency DEA approach and apply the method to supplier selection in a public tender, taking into account transparency and rating requirements. The presented approach is applied to a real case study in order to evaluate its effectiveness, while discussing it with respect to the cross-efficiency DEA method.