Technology selection with both quantitative and qualitative outputs

Abstract

Technology selection is an important part of the management of technology. To select the best technologies, a practical common-weight Multi-Objective Linear Programming (MOLP) approach with an improved discriminating power is introduced. The proposed MOLP approach enables the evaluation of the relative efficiency of Decision-Making Units (DMUs) with respect to multiple exact and ordinal outputs and a single exact input. Its robustness and discriminating power are illustrated via a previously reported robot evaluation problem by comparing the ranking that is obtained by the proposed MOLP framework with that obtained by the classical Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model.