An application of centralized data envelopment analysis in resource allocation in container terminal operations

Abstract

This paper presents an application of centralized data envelopment analysis (CDEA) to analyse the performance of a number of container terminals supervised by one liner shipping company. It provides a systematic and centralized perspective of resource reallocation based on one company’s perspective. The numerical results show that two of the five dedicated terminals are, by and large, efficient, but the other three need resources to be reallocated. Under the minor adjustment scenario, the liner shipping company should reduce the aggregated amount of the labour cost and the hauling equipment should be transferred to different terminals in America. Under the major adjustment scenario, both the labour and hauling equipment could be reduced.

Keywords:

• centralized data envelopment analysis
• resource allocation
• liner shipping company
• dedicated container terminal

Notes

1. The two constraints, and , help determine whether the current aggregated amounts of labour and hauling equipment are appropriate from the centralized perspective, i.e., the total quantities of labour and hauling equipment that may be increased or decreased in the optimal solution to the second phase model. Since these two constraints are the sum of all constraints of Eq. (10) and Eq. (12), both constraints are redundant and can be omitted in calculating the efficiency.

2. The constraint helps determine if the current aggregated amounts of labour and hauling equipment are appropriate from the centralized perspective. Since the constraint is the sum of all the constraints of Eq. (26), i.e., it is redundant and is thus omitted in calculating the efficiency.