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Research article

Supply chain performance evaluation in the presence of undesirable products: A case on power industry

  • One of the most serious problems in electricity supply chain management is excessive energy consumption in oil and gas fields and power plant sections and the control wasted energy or power losses in transmission and distribution lines. The resource allocation and utilization to environmental preservation of pollution gas emissions play a fundamental role in the implementation progress of energy and power plant sections and transmission and distribution lines in the power industry. In fact, the purpose of this study is to examine the effects of activity level control to flare gas reduction and environmental protection in energy and power plant sections and power losses management in an electricity supply chain. In other words, this study proposes a DEA model for evaluating electricity supply chain management to sustainability and environmental preservation in economic activity. A real case on the Iran power industry is presented to demonstrate the applicability and practicability of the proposed method. To demonstrate the capability of the proposed approach, this framework is implemented for the performance evaluation of a supply chain identified by oil and gas companies, power plants, transmissions companies, dispatching companies and final consumers in Iran. One empirical implication has obtained from the model performance. As the results show approximately, power plants have earned efficient more than 80% of the total in supply chains but oil and gas fields need to make their efforts to reduce pollution substance emissions by flare gas recovery and putting out oil fields burners. Also, the results demonstrate excessive wasted energy in the transmission and distribution lines as they need to engineer workforce to power loses abatement. Besides, this study recommends that the energy, power plant, transmission and distribution networks should be equipped with improved engineering systems and specialist workforce to economic boom increase and energy losses abatement and environment preservation from industrial pollutions.

    Citation: Mojgan Pouralizadeh, Aliraza Amirtaimoori, Rossana Riccardi, Mohsen Vaez-Ghasemi. Supply chain performance evaluation in the presence of undesirable products: A case on power industry[J]. AIMS Energy, 2020, 8(1): 48-80. doi: 10.3934/energy.2020.1.48

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  • One of the most serious problems in electricity supply chain management is excessive energy consumption in oil and gas fields and power plant sections and the control wasted energy or power losses in transmission and distribution lines. The resource allocation and utilization to environmental preservation of pollution gas emissions play a fundamental role in the implementation progress of energy and power plant sections and transmission and distribution lines in the power industry. In fact, the purpose of this study is to examine the effects of activity level control to flare gas reduction and environmental protection in energy and power plant sections and power losses management in an electricity supply chain. In other words, this study proposes a DEA model for evaluating electricity supply chain management to sustainability and environmental preservation in economic activity. A real case on the Iran power industry is presented to demonstrate the applicability and practicability of the proposed method. To demonstrate the capability of the proposed approach, this framework is implemented for the performance evaluation of a supply chain identified by oil and gas companies, power plants, transmissions companies, dispatching companies and final consumers in Iran. One empirical implication has obtained from the model performance. As the results show approximately, power plants have earned efficient more than 80% of the total in supply chains but oil and gas fields need to make their efforts to reduce pollution substance emissions by flare gas recovery and putting out oil fields burners. Also, the results demonstrate excessive wasted energy in the transmission and distribution lines as they need to engineer workforce to power loses abatement. Besides, this study recommends that the energy, power plant, transmission and distribution networks should be equipped with improved engineering systems and specialist workforce to economic boom increase and energy losses abatement and environment preservation from industrial pollutions.


    An electricity supply chain is a network of suppliers, producers, transmitters and distributors in which raw materials are transformed into final products and delivered to the customers. Supply chain management includes a set of profit methods to the efficient and effective integration of supplier, manufacturer, transmitter, distribution, and customer to minimize of system costs and prompt and reliable delivery of high-quality products. The energy sector is considered one of the most important types of advanced infrastructures in any country. The oil and gas fields and refineries are considered as the energy basic sectors in Iran so they provide demand fuels to nonrenewable power plants. More than 150 billion cubic meters flare gas released in the world, annually. According to the World Bank statistics in the year 2017, this number is equivalent to one-third of Europe continent consumption that seventy-five percent of emitted gases belong to ten countries as Iran had a global third rank and first rank in the Middle East. Also, Energy and power plant sections besides to produce energy, consume a lot of energy in economic activities. For instance, the daily more than 45 million cubic meters associated gas (gas in oil) have been burned to avoid from the possible explosion in oil and gas fields that burning fossil fuels not only a big thread for human health and the other organisms but also cause decrease economic return in industrial activities. Therefore, the flare gas recovery and return of wasted energy to gas natural cycle are an immediately necessary to environmental efficiency enhancement and economic growth. Similarity, power plants from production to consumption produce various harmful substances in the environment. Power plants are the largest fossil fuel consumers such as coal, fuel oil and gasoline and natural gas. These fuels play most of the role in electricity production Therefore, the more usage of them and power production increases greenhouse gas emissions. In the global scale, the key greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides. These gases have been released during the combustion of fossil fuels also Electricity production generates the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions. Approximately, 68 percent of consumption electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, mostly coal, fuel oil, gasoline and natural gas. Carbon dioxide (CO2) has the most contributions to pollution emissions in power plants. This gas cause climate changes and global warming also it is a threat to human health and other organisms. Therefore, we must reduce an number of greenhouse gases (GHG) by enhancing systems efficiently, otherwise, we will confront sever events such as heat waves, droughts, floods and other harmful factors to social and economics. In this case, decision-makers should adapt to various regulations to reducing pollution emissions. Approximately, one percent of power plants’ nominal capacity is devoted to power losses in transmission and distribution lines. The one percent of power plant capacity is equivalent to 2.5 billion kilo watt-hour power that to produce this amount of electricity releases about 1.8 ton Carbon dioxide (CO2) in air. Therefore, a profit solution to this problem is new ideas performance to investment opportunities and Technology innovation to harmful effects protection of environmental. In other word, if supply chain enterprises equipped with improved engineering capability and invest in improvement and repair of equipment in all of the divisions then undesirable outputs considerably decrease in production processes. Besides, the resulting investment in the energy industry, power plant sections and transmission and distribution lines usually depend on the especial span time for fulfillment and enterprise improvement. Therefore, supply chain management should can propose an appropriate approach to activity level control and wasted energy harness to environmental efficiency enhancement in the power industry. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a profitable method for performance of new ideas to the protection of environmental harmful effects in industrial activity. Let us now suppose that supply chain divisions apply inputs to produce desirable and undesirable outputs and the material flow is transferred from suppliers to manufacturers and from manufacturer to transmitters and from them to distributors and finally from distributors to customers in the production processes. Let us consider undesirable outputs such as emissions of harmful substances in the air, water and ground and other detrimental variables of production activities.

    In this study, we are going to answer the following question: how a decision-making unit or a supply chain enables decrease pollution gases emissions in oil and gas fields and power plants by scale down of production level and power plants fuel consumptions regulation and nominal capacity handling as power losses dramatically decrease in transmission and distribution lines? In this case, decision-makers should be able to identify which inputs of supply chain divisions decline to wasted energy abatement in electricity supply chain sectors. Indeed, the supply chain management needs to the size and type of reduced inputs to activity level control as handling flare gas in energy sections and reducing harmful substance emissions and greenhouses gases in power plant sectors and harnessing power losses in transmission and distribution networks.

    Therefore, supply chain management enables simultaneously minimize the negative environmental impacts whilst maximizing its operational performance Indeed, the main objective of supply chain management is minimizing operational and environmental costs while delivering value products to customers by production, transmission, and distribution inaccurate quantity, to suitable place, at the correct time and in a sustainability process. In other words, to achieve this goal we may compare cases in which firms are usually interested in decreasing inputs and undesirable outputs. Now we consider the week disposability of undesirable outputs. In addition, the weak disposability is accomplished by the activity level control to flare gas recovery and environmental protection into energy sections also the week disposability assumption is adapted to the inner electricity consumption control of power plants (technical and non-technical) and prevention of pollution gases emissions in power plants sectors. Similarity, the weak disposability is employed to the capacity and length control of transmission and distribution lines and power losses reduction in transmission and distribution networks.

    To include the undesirable outputs in the technology and account for their negative impact on productivity Hailu et al. [1] introduced disposability conditions on their technology which they refer to as the "weakly disposable" and treated detrimental variables as inputs, Färe et al. [2,3] applied an alternative approach that models undesirable emissions as outputs and imposing an assumption that these undesirable outputs are weakly disposable. They implicitly assume that all firms in the sample application a uniform abatement factor. Kuosmanen [4] presented a simple formulation of weak disposability that allows for non-uniform abatement factors and preserves the linear structure of the model.

    In this paper, we introduce a DEA approach to calculate environmental and operational efficiency in an electricity supply chain. Furthermore, DEA can conduct an industrial policy regarding how to increase the level of economic prosperity and how to decrease the amount of flare, GH gases and power losses, simultaneously. In the offered model the intensity weights of supply chain divisions separated into two categories of components as one of two category components related to the amount outputs are abated through scaling down of activity level and the other category contains components that remains active in the production process. In other word, this study focuses on environmental assessment of supply chain that minimizes the environmental impacts and maximizes economic returns and satisfies social requests. Besides, the supply chain sustainability assessment is measured by its divisions’ efficiency scores that the first priority is environmental performance and the second priority is operational performance.

    The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we present a review of the appropriate literature in DEA and supply chain management that indicates weak disposability in nonparametric production analysis with undesirable outputs. In Section 3, we present a brief review of the DEA model namely the "weakly disposable" DEA model. We show how to correctly specify weak disposability in an activity analysis model of supply chain performance evaluation problems. Section 4 is devoted to introducing a procedure to calculate unified efficiency (operational and environmental) of the supply chain under weak disposability of undesirable outputs and free disposability of inputs and desirable outputs. In Sections 5 we present a case study to exhibit properties of the procedure and demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method to a supply chain performance evaluation problem to the power industry in Iran. In Section 6 we present our conclusions.

    The undesirable factors may also need to be considered in real- life applications. In this section, various studies on undesirable outputs and green supply chain management GSCM are briefly summarized as follows.

    Hailu et al. [1] extend the non-parametric analysis of Chavaz et al. [5] by incorporating undesirable outputs to provide a more complete representation of the production technology. Shephard [6] introduced the definition of weak disposability and proposed basic production axioms on that. They constructed Inner and outer non-parametric technology bounds. They also introduced disposability condition on their technology, which claimed as is preferable to what they referring to as the "weakly disposable" DEA model and developed a production model.

    Färe et al. [4,5] showed that the monotonicity condition introduced by Hailu et al. [1] is inconsistent with physical laws and the standard axioms of production of weak disposability according to [3] and implicitly assume that, all firms in the sample application a uniform abatement factor. Kuosmanen [4] presented an alternative approach that models undesirable emissions as outputs imposing an assumption that these undesirable outputs are weakly disposable. He showed how weakly disposable technology can be modeled in a way such that non-uniform abatement factors can be applied as Kuosmanen technology is the correct minimum extrapolation technology under the stated axioms.

    Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was developed by the CCR model [8] to evaluate the relative efficiency of decision-maker units (DMUs).To measure the efficiency of the complex network systems, Färe and Grosskopf [9] and Färe et al [10] built division production possibility set satisfying the standard available in [11].Tone and Tsutsui [12] proposed a method called Epsilon based measure (EBM). The EBM models simultaneously consider both the radial and non-radial measures of efficiency in DEA. Färe et al. [10] developed a sequence of network models. They presented three network models and formalized technologies by a series of linear in quality constraints.

    Zhu [13] proposed a DEA approaches for airlines performance by two–stage network.

    Kao et al. [14] built a relation network DEA model, taking into account the interrelationship of the processes within the system to measure the efficiency of the system and those of the processes at the same time.

    Kao [15] modified the conventional DEA model by taking into account the series relationship of the two sub-processes within the whole process.

    Tone and Tsutsi [16] proposed a slacks-based network DEA model called network SBM.

    Chen and Yan [17] consider a general network structure in which modeling processes are based upon the concept of centralized, decentralized and mixed control organization mechanisms. They first build division production possibility set all satisfying the strong free disposability as it is common in conventional DEA models, then the production possibility set of the assumption supply chain is formed by combining its divisional production possibility sets. They calculated supply chain efficiency according to [18] projection on the efficient frontier of the supply chain.

    Tavana et al. [19] extended the EBM model proposed by Tone and Tsutsi [16] and proposed a new Network EBM (NEMB).

    Nevertheless, all of the above- mentioned approaches to determine efficiency score assume that the outputs are desirable.

    Mirhedayatian et al. [20] presented a DEA-based model in the presence of undesirable outputs, dual-role factors, and fuzzy data. They indicated a method to improve environmental performance a green the supply chain management and incorporate dual-role factor and undesirable output into (NSBM) model proposed by Tone and Tsutsui [12].

    Tajbakhsh et al. [21] proposed a multi-stage data envelopment analysis model to evaluate the sustainability of a chain of business partners. They assess supply chain sustainability in the banking sector and beverage case.

    In summary, all of the abovementioned references for environmental performance assessment of supply chain do not consider network DEA model based on production level reduction to undesirable products. Also, the aforementioned models are not able to define parameters to the amount activity level abatement and undesirable products.

    In this Section is reported the production technology set and outputs set to the overall supply chain and its divisions under weak disposability of undesirable outputs.

    Definition: Outputs are weakly disposable if (v,w)p(x) and 0θ1 implies (θv,θw)p(x) (see[3]).

    Let us consider, hs, hm,ht,hd,hc the number of divisions in the supplier, manufacturer, transmitter, distributor and customer, respectively. Also, xhnk,yhrk,whjk represent the nth input (n=1,...,N), the rth desirable output (r=1,...,s) and the jth undesirable output (j=1,...,J) of the hth division h=(1,...,H) in the kth supply chain (k=1,...,K), respectively. v(h,h)mk Represents the intermediate measure between the hth division to the hth division of kth supply chain (DMU) with subscript (m, k) indicating mth intermediate measure (m=1,...,Mh) in kth supply chain (k=1,...,K). Furthermore, θhk are defined as abatement factors that scale down both desirable and undesirable outputs of hth division in kth supply chain and zhk indicate the intensity is divided into two parts as zhk=λhk+μhk where μhk represents the part of output that is abated through scaling down of activity level and λhk denotes the part of output that remains active of hth division in kth supply chain (λhk=θhkzhk). s(hs,hm)mks(hm,ht)mk,s(ht,hd)mk,s(hd,hc)mk represent slack variables of mth intermediate measure from supplier divisions to manufacturer divisions, and manufacturer divisions to transmitter divisions, and from transmitter divisions to distributor divisions and from them to customer divisions in kth supply chain (k = 1, …, K). ϕhs,ϕhm,ϕht,ϕhd,ϕhc Represent the reduction variables of all undesirable outputs in suppliers, manufacturers, transmitter, distributors and customers divisions, respectively Suppose we observe the production data of k supply chains; the data for supply chain (k=1,...,K) and hth division (h=1,...,H) are represented by the vector, (vhk,yhk,whk,xhk). The production technology set of hth division in the kth supply chain is defined as follows. Y={(vhk,yhk,whk,xhk)|xhkcanproduce(vhk,yhk,whk)} Thus, the outputs set of hth division in the kth supply chain can be indicated as follows: Phk(x)={(vhk,yhk,whk)|(vhk,yhk,whk,xhk)Y}

    Let us consider the general structure of the supply chain depicts in Figure 1.

    Figure 1.  The general structure of supply chain.

    We shall assume free disposability of inputs and good outputs, weak disposability of good and undesirable outputs, the convexity of Y and variable returns to scale. In this method, the parameters abovementioned and intermediate measures are incorporated into the network model to the performance evaluation of cooperative and non-cooperative network and slack variables of intermediate measures are unrestricted that they will recognize better activity level as the decline in desirable output. Furthermore, the experimental outputs set are considered to suppliers, manufacturers, transmitter distributions and division’s customer and they indicate as, Ps(x),Pm(x),Pt(x),Pd(x),Pc(x), respectively.

    Figure 2 shows an electricity supply chain structure in the power industry. The electricity supply chains are power suppliers in industry activity. They are comprised of fuel suppliers (oil and gas fields), power producers (power plants), electricity transmitters (transmission lines), power distributors (distribution lines) and final customers. These entities collaborate to power production and management in economic business. In this study, the supply chains have been built in northern, southern, eastern, western and central districts in Iran. In this conformation oil and gas fields and refineries provide demand fuels of power plants and district power plants transfer produced power by regional power companies to the area distribution companies to dispatching to consumers or residents of their area. Other words, each supply chain or DMU is built of five stages and partners of each stage connected by intermediate measures to the successor stage. Supply chains are comparable and compete in the power industry. In Figure 2 is depicted intermediated measures sent from oil and gas fields to power plants, from transmissions companies to distributions companies and finally from them to customers. These measures indicate entities’ relationship in the supply chain. However, each division of entities operates in depending on other divisions per stage of economic activities and supply chains compete to high efficiency earn in economic business. The whole goal examines the corporate sustainability of the Iranian power industry to environmental and operational efficiency increase to wasted energy reduction and environment protection of harmful gas emissions in production processes.

    Figure 2.  The supply chain structure.

    The outputs set can be separately defined for the partners of the supply chain as follows.

    Ps(x)={(v,w)|kk=1λhkv(h,h)mk+s(h,h)mk=Kk=1λhkv(h,h)mkh=1,...,hsh=1,...,hmm=1,...,MsKk=1λhkyhrkyroKk=1λhkwhjk=wjoh=1,...,hsr=1,...,Ssj=1,...,Jsh=1,....,hsKk=1(λhk+μhk)xnkxnon=1,...,NsKk=1(λhk+μhk)=1h=1,...,hsλk,μk0μ0k=1,...,Ks(h,h)mkfreem=1,...,Ms (1)
    Pm(x)={(v,w)|Kk=1λhkv(h,h)mk+s(h,h)mk=Kk=1λhkv(h,h)mkh=1,...,hmKk=1λhkyhrkyhroKk=1λhkwhjk=whjoh=1,...,hdm=1,...,Mmh=1,....,hmKk=1(λhk+μhk)xhnkxhnor=1,....,Smj=1,....,JmKk=1(λhk+μhk)=1h=1,....,hmn=1,....,Nmλk,μk0h=1,....,hms(h,h)mkfreek=1,....,Km=1,....,Mm (2)
    PT(x)={(v,w)|Kk=1λhkv(h,h)mk+s(h,h)m=Kk=1λhkv(h,h)mkKk=1λhkwhjk=wjoKk=1(λhk+μhk)xnkxnoKK=1(λhk+μhk)=1s(h,h)mfreeλk,μkh=1,...,hth=1,...hdm=1,...Mth=1,...,htr=1,...,stj=1,...jth=1,...,htn=1,...Nth=1,...,hth=1,...,htk=1,...Km=1,...Mt (3)
    PD(x)={(v,w)|Kk=1λhkv(h,h)mk+s(h,h)mk=Kk=1λhkv(h,h)mkKk=1λhkwhjk=wjoKk=1(λhk+μhk)xnkxnoKK=1(λhk+μhk)=1s(h,h)mkfreeλk,μkh=1,...,hdh=1,...hcm=1,...Mdh=1,...,hdr=1,...,sdj=1,...,jdh=1,...,hdn=1,...Ndh=1,...,hdh=1,...,hdk=1,...,Km=1,...,Md (4)
    PC(x)={Kk=1λhkyhrkyhroKk=1λhkwhjk=wjoh=1,...,hcr=1,...,scKk=1(λhk+μhk)xnkxhnoh=1,...,hcj=1,...,jdKk=1(λhk+μhk)=1n=1,...,Ncλk,μk0h=1,...,hck=1,...,km=1,...mc (5)

    Therefore, outputs set can be defined to a supply chain which comprises an arbitrary number of each division type and production indexes. In particular, we develop outputs set both non-cooperative and cooperative or centralize approaches to performance evaluation of a sustainable supply chain. In the result, outputs set of overall supply chain can be formed of all of its partners outputs set in production processes as follows.

    {(v,w)|Kk=1λhkv(h,h)mk+s(h,h)mk=Kk=1λhkv(h,h)mkh=1,...hs,m=1,...Ms,h=1,...hmKk=1λhkv(h,h)mk+s(h,h)mk=Kk=1λhkv(h,h)mkh=1,...hm,m=1,...Mm,h=1,...htKk=1λhkv(h,h)mk+s(h,h)mk=Kk=1λhkv(h,h)mkKk=1λhkv(h,h)mk+s(h,h)mk=Kk=1λhkv(h,h)mkh=1,...ht,m=1,...Mt,h=1,...hdh=1,...hd,m=1,...Md,h=1,...hcKk=1λhkyhrkyhroh=1,...hs,r=1,...SsKk=1λhkyhrkyhroh=1,...hm,r=1,...SmKk=1λhkyhrkyhroKk=1λhkyhrkyhroh=1,...ht,r=1,...Sth=1,...hd,r=1,...SdKk=1λhkyhrkyhroh=1,...hc,r=1,...ScKk=1λhkwhjk=whjoj=1,...js,h=1,...hsKk=1λhkwhjk=whjoj=1,...jm,h=1,...hmKk=1λhkwhjk=whjkKk=1λhkwhjk=whjoj=1,...jt,h=1,...htj=1,...jd,h=1,...hdKk=1λhkwhjk=whjoj=1,...jc,h=1,...hcKk=1(λhk+μhk)xnkxhnon=1,...Ns,h=1,...hsKk=1(λhk+μhk)xnkxhnon=1,...Nm,h=1,...hmkk=1(λhk+μhk)xnkxhnoKk=1(λhk+μhk)xnkxhnon=1,...Nt,h=1,...htn=1,...Nd,h=1,...hdKk=1(λhk+μhk)xnkxhnon=1,...Nc,h=1,...hcKk=1(λhk+μhk)=1λk,μk0,s(h,h)mkfreeh,h=1,....Hk,k=1,....k (6)

    Now, we present our cooperative approach to evaluate the sustainability of a supply chain as:

    θ=MinHh=1Whφhos.tkk=1λhkv(h,h)mk+s(h,h)mk=λhkv(h,h)mkh=1,...hs,m=1,...Ms,h=1,...hmKk=1λhkv(h,h)mk+s(h,h)mk=λhkv(h,h)mkh=1,...hm,m=1,...Mm,h=1,...htKk=1λhkv(h,h)mk+s(h,h)mk=Kk=1λhkv(h,h)mkkk=1λhkv(h,h)mk+s(h,h)mk=λh1kv(h,h)mkh=1,...ht,m=1,...Mt,h=1,...hdh=1,...hd,m=1,...Md,h=1,...hckk=1λhkyhrkyhroh=1,...hs,r=1,...Sskk=1λhkyhrkyhroh=1,...hm,r=1,...SmKk=1λhkyhrkyhrokk=1λhkyhrkyhroh=1,...ht,r=1,...Sth=1,...hd,r=1,...Sdkk=1λhkyhrkyhroh=1,...hc,r=1,...Sckk=1λhkwhjk=φhowhjoj=1,...js,h=1,...hskk=1λhkwhjk=φhowhjoj=1,...jm,h=1,...hmKk=1λhkwhjk=φhowhjokk=1λhkwhjk=φhowhjoj=1,...jt,h=1,...htj=1,...jd,h=1,...hdkk=1λhkwhjk=φhwhjoj=1,...jc,h=1,...hckk=1(λhk+μhk)xhnkxhnoh=1,...,hd,n=1,...,Ndkk=1(λhk+μhk)xhnkxhnoh=1,...hd,n=1,...Nm
    Kk=1(λhk+μhk)xhnkxhnoh=1,...ht,n=1,...Ntkk=1(λhk+μhk)xhnkxhnoh=1,...,hd,n=1,...,Ndkk=1(λhk+μhk)xhnkxhnoh=1,...hc,n=1,...Nckk=1(λhk+μhk)=1h,h=1,....Hk,k=1,....kϕho0,s(h,h)mkfreeλk,μk0 (7)

    One straightforward approach to calculate the effect of production factors is non-cooperative network method in which each member of each stage is evaluated separately as follows.

    Minγ=ϕhsokk=1λhkv(h,h)mk+s(h,h)mk=λh1kv(h,h)mkhhs,m=1,...Ms,hhmkk=1λhkyhrkyhrohhs,r=1,...Skk=1λhkwhjk=ϕhsowhjoj=1,...js,hhskk=1(λhk+μhk)xhnkxhnohhs,n=1,...NsKk=1(λhk+μhk)=1hhsϕhso0,λk,μk0,s(hs,hm)mkfree,k,k=1,....K (8)

    The above model measures the efficiency of supplier divisions in a supply chain. The performance evaluating efficiency of supply chain partners can be calculated by a model similar to (8). After measuring the optimal efficiency of each member of supply chain network by a model such as model (8) the efficiency of under consideration DMU (supply chain) calculate by weighted average of optimal efficiency of each division of the supply chain as follows.

    γo=hswhsμhso+hmwhmμhmo+htwhtμhto+hdwhdμhdo+hcwhcμhcohswh+hmwh+htwh+hdwh+hcwhc (9)

    In the above model is supposed a supply chain contains an arbitrary number of suppliers, manufacturers, transmitters, distributers and customers. The objective function of Model (7) indicates the weighted average of the efficiency of partners as weights could be obtained through an expert opinion processes. In this study we considered the different weights for partners of a particular stage of the network supply chain. Wh,(h=1,...,H)are weights for H divisions that are defined by decision makers. The right and left hand sight of the first constraints categories indicates the intermediate measures exit from th division and enter to division, respectively. The fifth until the fourteenth constraints are corresponded to desirable and undesirable outputs respectively. Moreover, the fifteenth constraint until nineteenth constraint related to inputs of every division. The last constrains categories indicate variable return to scale in production processes. In addition, five pair (ϕhso,λhsk),(ϕhmo,λhmk),(ϕhdo,λhdk),(ϕhco,λhck), indicates the main decision variable analogous to suppliers, manufactures, transmitters, distributers and customers, respectively. In this model is CCR-efficient if. Model (10) propose a supply chain multistage network based on cooperative or centralized approach following the method of [6]. This model measures the level of unified efficiency (operational and environmental) where all slack variables of intermediate measures are considered unrestricted; this allows higher flexibility in material flow of intermediate measures.

    Proposition1. Suppose θo,γo are the optimal objective function cooperative and non-cooperative models, respectively then γoθo where o{k=1,...,K}, See proof [21].

    In this section, we apply the proposed model to the analysis of the power industry in Iran. In Subsection 5.1 we will describe the dataset and we will specify the inputs and outputs we will consider in our analysis, in Subsection 5.2 we will present the main results.

    The stylized supply chain in the power industry can be summarized in five main actors: gas and fuel suppliers, power generators, transmission networks, distribution facilities, and final users. Conventional power plants consume fuel oil, natural gas and diesel to produce electricity, while renewable ones are solar, wind and hydro plants. Conventional plants can be further divided depending on the kind of technology adopted, in thermal, gas and combined cycle plants. In general, thermal power plants operated by fossil fuels produce huge amounts of air pollutants. The pollutants which have been considered in the study are sulfur oxides (SOX), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and carbon dioxide (CO2).

    Our purpose is to highlight the theoretical and practical quality of the model, therefore each of the DMUs or the supply chain is built of five stages and each stage includes a set of partners connected to the predecessor stages members by some sustainable intermediate measures. In our application, we consider 10 supply chains (DMUs) including oil and gas fields (suppliers) that provide different fuels to power stations, power plants (manufacturers), regional power companies (transmitters), distribution companies (distributors) and customers. The supply chains have been built in northern, southern, eastern, western and central districts of Iran. In this study, energy sectors or oil and gas fields and fineries supplying demand fuels of area power plants so that, the energy sections are considered as suppliers and the power plants of the districts are selected as manufactures (power producers) in supply chain construction. Likewise, the region power companies transmit produced power of the area power plants to dispatching to distributions companies that are placed in the area. Finally, the distributions companies dispatch power to consumers or the area residences. Per each supply chain, we consider two suppliers: oil and gas companies that satisfy the fuel demand of power plants (intermediate product) and that can also sell fuels as final output. Suppliers use two inputs (capital and labor) and produce one desirable (oil or gas) and one undesirable output (flaring gas). Each manufacturer includes at least three power plants with different technologies (thermal, combined cycle, gas, hydro, wind and solar). They use fuels, capital, and labor to produce electricity and they sell it to regional power companies. To update and enlarge their capacity, manufacturers can substitute existing plants with more efficient ones or they can construct new plants. Three undesirable outputs are considered for manufacturers: CO2, NOx, and SOX emissions.

    Transmitters transfer electricity from manufacturers to distributing companies and the capacity and length of the lines are considered as inputs in lines. The loose in the transmission lines is considered as undesirable output while the construction of new lines is a desirable one. Distribution companies receive electricity from transmitters and dispatch it to the final consumers. They use two inputs as capacity of the distribution lines and length of the distribution lines, one final desirable output as the meter of electricity and one undesirable output that is losses in the distribution lines. Finally, customers are classified as residential, public, agriculture and industrial. Table 1 indicates the production factors used for supply chain evaluation.

    Table 1.  Production factors in performance evaluation.
    Division Numerator Factors Definition
    Supplier hs xhs1k Capacity of oil (103 Barrels) and gas(106 m3)
    xhs2k Number of employees
    yhs1k Oil (103 Barrels) and gas (106 m3) sold
    whs1k Flaring gas of oil field (103 barrels)and gas field(106 m3)
    Manufacturer hm xhm1k Power nominal of power plants
    xhm2k Labor
    yhm1k Percentage of new construction of power plant
    whm1k Emissions of Nox harmful Substances(103 Kg/106 K wh)
    whm2k Emissions of SOx harmful Substances(103 Kg/106 K wh)
    whm3k Emission of CO2 harmful Substances(103 Kg/106 K wh)
    Transmitter ht xht1k Capacity of regional company (M wa)
    xht2k Length transmission line (Km circuit)
    yht1k New construction of transmission lines (Km circuit)
    wht1k Loose of transmission line (%)
    Distribution hd xhd1k Capacity of distribution lines (M wa)
    xhd2k Length transmission line (Km)
    yhd1k New construction of distribution lines (Km)
    whd1k Percentage of losses of distribution line (%)
    Customer xhc1k Average cost with fuel subsidy (Rial)
    yhc1k Number of customers
    yhc2k Sales of electricit(106 K wh)
    whc1k Cut of power
    vh,hmk Material flow from division h to division h(106 K wa)

     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV

    More in detail, the parameters used to characterize this supply chain are defined as follows:

    hs: Numerator of division in the supplier level (hs = 1, 2)

    xhs1k: Capacity of oil (103 Barrels) and gas (106 m3) fields of hs the supplier in kth supply chain.

    xhs2k: Number of employees from hsth supplier in kth supply chain.

    yhs1k: Oil (103 Barrels) and gas (106 m3) sold to other companies from the hsth supplier in kth supply chain.

    whs1k: Flaring gas of oil field (103 barrels) and gas field (106m3) of the hsth supplier in the kth supply chain.

    hm: Numerator of division in the manufacturer level (hm = 3, 4, 5)

    xhm1k: Power nominal of hm th manufacturer in the kth supply chain (106 Kwh).

    xhm2k: Number of employees of hmth manufacturer in the kth supply chain.

    whs1k: Flaring gas of oil field (103 barrels) and gas field (106 m3) of the hsth supplier in the kth supply chain.

    hm: Numerator of division in the manufacturer level (hm = 3, 4, 5)

    xhm1k: Power nominal of hm th manufacturer in the kth supply chain (106 K wh).

    xhm2k: Number of employees of hmth manufacturer in the kth supply chain.

    yhm1k: Percentage of new construction of power plant of the hmth manufacturer in the kth supply chain

    whm1k: Emissions of NOx harmful substances of the hmth manufacturer in the kth supply chain (103 Kg/106 K wh).

    whm2k: Emissions of SOx harmful substance of the hmth manufacturer in the kth supply chain (103 Kg/106 Kwh).

    whm3k: Emission of CO2 harmful substance of the hmth manufacturer in the kth supply chain (103 Kg/106 K wh).

    ht: Numerator of the divisions in the transmitters level (ht = 6, 7)

    xht1k: Capacity of regional company of the htth transmitter in the kth supply chain (M wa).

    xht2k: Length transmission line of the ht th transmitter in the kth supply chain (Km circuit).

    yht1k: New construction of transmission lines of the htth transmitter in the kth supply chain (Km circuit).

    whd1k: Loose of transmission line of ht th transmitter in the kth supply chain (%).

    hd: Numerator of division in the distributer level (hd: 8, 9, 10, 11)

    xhd1k: Capacity of distribution lines of hdth distributer company in the kth supply chain (M wa).

    xhd2k: Length distribution line of the hdth distributer in the kth supply chain (Km).

    yhd1k: Meter of electricity of hdth distributer in kth supply chain

    whd1k: Percentage of losses of distribution line of hdth distributer in the kth supply chain

    hc: Numerator of division in the customer level (hc: 12, 13, 14, 15)

    xhc1k: Average cost with fuel subsidy of the hcth customer in the kth supply chain (Rial).

    yhc1k: Number of customers of hcth customer in the kth supply chain.

    yhc2k: Sales of electricity of the hcth customer in the kth supply chain (106 K wh).

    whc1k: Cut of power of the hcth customer in the kth supply chain (minute/year).

    Vh,hmk: Material flow from division h to division h(106 K wa).

    The dataset has been collected from power industry company in Iran and the reference year is 2015 (see TAVANIR website for the detailed data). The total emissions due to electricity generation in Iran, the amount and type fuel used in all power plants have been considered in the computation of undesirable output. All the data of the two oil and gas fields (suppliers), power plants (manufacturers), regional power companies (transmitters), distribution companies (distributors) and customers (residential, public, agriculture, industrial) are available in the Tavanir website [22]. Supplier inputs are obtained from oil and gas fields statistics of energy industry in Iran. Desirable output is computed as the difference between the average annual production and the amount of oil and gas that are sent to power plants; undesirable output (flaring gas) is calculated with 0.03% rate of the annual production of oil and gas. Information related to the demand fuel of power plants is collected from TAVANIR Company [22] in power industry and they are considered as intermediate measure from oil and gas fields to power plants. The capacity of power plants is a proxy of the input capital (for a similar approach see [23]). Undesirable outputs for manufacturers are computed based on the amount of electricity produced by the different power plants using different technologies and fuels. Dataset of inputs and desirable output of regional power company are collected from transmission division of TAVANIR company in power industry and losses of transmission line (undesirable output) is estimated with a 3.02% factor based on amount of loose of transmission in Iran. All of data of distribution company are obtained from dispatch division of TAVANIR company in power industry likewise input of customer divisions are collected from TAVANIR company and desirable output of customers are computed as total sale of electricity to residential, public, agriculture and industry divisions but undesirable output is computed by time cut off of electricity in different divisions of consumers in 2015.

    The data sets corresponding to the 10 supply chains (DMUs) under analysis are presented in Tables 216. Tables 2 and 3 show inputs and desirable and undesirable outputs for suppliers 1 and 2, respectively. In Tables 47, we present the data of manufacturer (level 2, 3, 4).Tables 8 and 9 show the data of transmitters with two inputs, one good output and one undesirable output, respectively. Tables 1013 collect the data on distributors where two inputs, one desirable and one undesirable output are considered. Finally, in Tables 1416 the data of customers are reported with one input, two desirable outputs and one undesirable output. The material flow or intermediate measure from suppliers to manufacturers, from manufacture’s division to the transmitters from transmitters to distributors and from distributors to the customers are presented in Tables 17-22.

    Table 2.  The supplier level-inputs.
    DMU supplier 1 (division 1) supplier 2 (division 2)
    Capacity(103barrels)
    x11k
    labor
    x12k
    Capacity(103barrels)
    x21k
    labor
    x22k
    1 2550 3200 7200 2500
    2 61200 1300 21600 2500
    3 21600 3200 10800 2400
    4 32400 3110 6480 1400
    5 12600 2800 19440 3000
    6 43200 2200 10800 2400
    7 46800 2400 10800 1380
    8 39600 1600 21600 2250
    9 9360 2150 19440 2180
    10 64800 2500 6480 2900
    Source: category: oil field of iran-wikipedia, https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/category:oil fields of iran; https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/category:ntural gas in iran

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    Table 3.  The supplier level desirable and undesirable outputs.
    DMU Supplier 1 (Division 1) Supplier 2 (Division 2)
    Oil sold (103barrels)
    y11k
    Gas flare(103barrels)
    w11k
    gas sold (103barrels)
    y21k
    Gas flare(103barrels)
    w21k
    1 1739.693 54 1186.216 151.2
    2 40572.996 1296 7203.230 345.6
    3 8995.883 432 3726.203 183.6
    4 26527.191 972 1930.025 140.4
    5 4552.857 216 10438.190 367.2
    6 23324.391 756 3350.675 183.6
    7 17080.471 756 2353.130 172.8
    8 15872.914 648 9455.104 345.6
    9 6062.772 194.4 9849.593 367.2
    10 25603.400 1296 2208.415 140.4
    Calculations flaring gas and sold oil and gas.

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    Table 4.  Manufacturers level inputs.
    DMU Manufacturer 1 (Division3) Manufacturer 2 (Divition4) Manufacturer 3 (Division5)
    Power nominal(106kwh)
    x31k
    labor
    x32k
    Power nominal(106kwh)
    x41k
    labor
    x42k
    Power nominal(106kwh)
    x51k
    labor
    x52k
    1 63224 4070 15408 1600 11903 1200
    2 16200 2263 10400 700 2626.952 2600
    3 10448 1000 5701.12 3300 16760 2005
    4 8022.4 1000 8622.4 3300 8344 2005
    5 5184 890 1920.48 900 16417.760 2823
    6 13672.88 2300 3312 2500 3936 800
    7 966.32 1450 8352 2700 17844.8 890
    8 1491.2 1520 10320 2260 16800 1300
    9 3872 1500 10590 3600 7072 4100
    10 11453.6 3180 6787.200 760 2053.28 1590
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tolid and calculations million kilo watt hou.

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    Table 5.  Manufacturers level desirable and undesirable outputs.
    DMU Manufacturer 1 (Division 3)
    Percentage of new power plant
    y31k
    Emissions of Nox
    (103Kg/106Kwh)
    w31k
    Emissions of Sox
    (103Kg/106Kwh)
    w32k
    Emissions of Sox
    (103Kg/106Kwh)
    w33k
    1 12.2 454610.278 23891876.280 288025420.100
    2 12.2 302399.805 4207069.806 191952930.500
    3 13 235104.740 195553.061 149621794
    4 12.2 229464.218 12059407.75 145380628.200
    5 73.6 43498.708 38755.471 27536231.770
    6 100 256638.343 217529.667 163094448.800
    7 85.5 6683.633 5954.829 4230977.926
    8 85.5 15138.687 184259.151 9585079.623
    9 13 92035.892 76552.691 58572086.910
    10 86.6 236364.062 196600.528 150423232.700
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tolid and calculations 1000kg/million kilo watt hour.

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    Table 6.  Manufacturers level desirable and undesirable outputs.
    DMU Manufacturer 2
    (Division 4)
    Percentage of new power plant
    y41k
    Emissions of Nox
    (103Kg/106Kwh)
    w41k
    Emissions of Sox
    (103Kg/106Kwh)
    w42k
    Emissions of Sox
    (103Kg/106Kwh)
    w43k
    1 85.5 5715.366 5092.145 3618030.390
    2 0 283431.105 14895617.700 179572190
    3 12.2 174773.192 9070013.802 110729096.200
    4 25.2 182851.984 152090.788 116367887.400
    5 12.2 49845.037 2619587.603 3158009.070
    6 85.5 27420.014 24430.049 17357845.530
    7 12.2 273496.466 14373506.370 173277944.500
    8 12.2 311634.456 21776302.480 197440862.200
    9 98.8 176752.534 147351.908 112467128.500
    10 86.6 79593.197 66419.786 50641168.170
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tolid and calculations 1000kg/million kilo watt hour.

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    Table 7.  Manufacturers level desirable and undesirable outputs.
    DMU Manufacturer 3
    (Division 5)
    Percentage of new power plant
    y51k
    Emissions of Nox
    (103 Kg/106 Kwh)
    w51k
    Emissions of Sox
    (103 Kg/106 Kwh)
    w52k
    Emissions of Sox
    (103 Kg/106 Kwh)
    w53k
    1 73.600 19603.894 17519.680 12447945.190
    2 73.600 27423877.76 24433491.25 17360291475
    3 98.800 212448.268 690393.877 135090771.800
    4 13 140748.540 117070.408 89573051.780
    5 87 300157.654 9178172.226 190308335.200
    6 13 77463.980 64432.212 49298451.340
    7 13 471751.939 21768344.370 299051808
    8 13 510495.755 21776302.480 323709891.900
    9 13 94829.614 78876.425 60350025.180
    10 1.200 59895.401 3147780.793 37947663.670
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tolid and calculations 1000kg/million kilo watt hour.

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    Table 8.  The transmitter level inputs.
    DMU Transmitter 1 (division 6) Transmitter 2 (division 7)
    Capacity of regional company (Mwa) x61k Length line (Km circuit) x62k Capacity of regional company (Mwa) x71k Length line (Km circuit) x72k
    1 27542 8704 25086 14697.700
    2 41011 9127.800 4938 2244.500
    3 13659 8643.400 41011 9127.800
    4 16545 10367.900 41011 9127.800
    5 6871 2850.700 13659 8643.400
    6 14068 11166.400 4938 2244.500
    7 14171 5780.500 8762 4480.400
    8 10812 8273.300 15407 6095.800
    9 25086 14697.700 7367 3776.100
    10 10812 8273.300 7716.400 1453.800
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//entagha.

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    Table 9.  Transmitter level desirable and undesirable outputs.
    DMU Transmitter 1 (division 6) Transmitter 2 (division 7)
    New construction
    (Km circuit).
    y61k
    Loose of power
    (%)
    w61k
    New construction
    (Km circuit).
    y71k
    Loose of power
    (%)
    w71k
    1 990 508.845 1541.400 51.880
    2 1302.300 200.566 110 301.829
    3 1961.500 175.381 1302.300 357.789
    4 1596 328.197 1302.300 117.468
    5 324 67.759 1961.500 263.987
    6 431.300 254.862 110 107.780
    7 1576.200 447.605 747 61.919
    8 601.200 373.774 386 202.020
    9
    10
    1541.400
    601.200
    273.358
    294.146
    110
    1453.800
    84.462
    38.828
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//entaghal and calculations loose of electricity.

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    Table 10.  The distributor level inputs.
    DMU Distributor 1 (division 8) Distributor 2 (division 9)
    Capacity of distribution line (Mva)
    x81k
    length distribution line
    (Km)
    x82k
    Capacity of distribution line (Mva)
    x91k
    length distribution line(Km)
    x92k
    1 7792 40437 4067 60332
    2 11349 64702 2330 19739
    3 11349 64702 3068 28043
    4 8612 12406 1787 8942
    5 900 13383 2480 26770
    6 11349 64702 3175 15731
    7 3639 37153 1444 13785
    8 2084 51688 4221 24689
    9 7792 40437 1894 18162
    10 2690 35606 2084 51688
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tozee.

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    Table 11.  The distributor level inputs.
    DMU Distributor 3 (division 10) Distributor 4 (division 11)
    Capacity of distribution line (Mva)
    x101k
    length distribution line
    (Km)
    x102k
    Capacity of distribution line (Mva)
    x111k
    length distribution line
    (Km)
    x112k
    1 3325 13761 4492 10052
    2 1787 18122 1324 11101
    3 3651 32533 900 13383
    4 1874 12075 3175 56184
    5 3965 32533 3068 28043
    6 1324 11101 1894 18162
    7 900 13383 11349 64702
    8 4067 60332 5395 52340
    9 3325 13761 4067 60332
    10 4067 60332 5395 52340
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tozee.

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    Table 12.  Distributor level desirable and undesirable outputs.
    DMU Distributor 1
    (Division8)
    Distributor2
    (Divitson9)
    Meter of electricity y81k Power losses (%)
    w81k
    Meter of electricity
    y91k
    Power losses
    (%)
    w91k
    1
    2
    3
    4
    5
    6
    7
    8
    9
    10
    576253
    2046151
    2046151
    1288350
    265678
    2046151
    497281
    294579
    576253
    469733
    14.210
    7.200
    15.570
    15.570
    13.250
    15.57
    13.600
    11.230
    14.210
    12.540
    576253
    323920
    631924
    345484
    662102
    513660
    429044
    368658
    513660
    347768
    8.030
    10.400
    11.390
    10.730
    12.670
    11.510
    11.050
    13.330
    7.250
    11.230
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tozee.

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    Table 13.  Distributor level desirable and undesirable outputs.
    DMU Distributor 3
    (Division10)
    Distributor 4
    (Divition11)
    Meter of electricity
    y101k
    Power losses (%)
    w101k
    Meter of electricity
    y111k
    Power losses (%)
    w111k
    1 248079 13.590 327034 14.200
    2 345484 10.730 208346 7.990
    3 429044 11.050 265678 13.250
    4 329071 7.670 309704 12.030
    5 429044 11.05 631924 11.390
    6 208346 7.990 333449 7.250
    7 265678 13.25 2046151 15.570
    8 550244 8.030 691491 8.100
    9 208346 13.590 631924 8.030
    10 550244 8.030 691491 8.100
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tozee.

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    Table 14.  The customer level inputs.
    DMU Customer1
    (Division 12)
    Customer2
    (Division 13)
    Customer 3
    (Division 14)
    Customer 4
    (Division15)
    Average cost(Rial)
    x121k
    Average cost(Rial)
    x131k
    Average cost(Rial)
    x141k
    Average cost(Rial)
    x151k
    1 1400 1094.800 1096.400 2802.500
    2 1400 1094.800 1096.800 2802.500
    3 1400 1094.800 1096.800 2802.500
    4 1400 1094.800 1096.800 2802.500
    5 1400 1094.800 1096.800 2802.500
    6 1400 1094.800 1096.800 2802.500
    7 1400 1094.800 1096.800 2802.500
    8 1400 1094.800 1096.800 2802.500
    9 1400 1094.800 1096.800 2802.500
    10 1400 1094.800 1096.800 2802.500
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tozee.

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    Table 15.  The Customer level desirable and undesirable outputs.
    DMU Customer 1 (division 12) Customer 2 (division 13)
    Number of customers
    y121k
    Sales of electricity
    y122k
    Cut of power
    w121k
    Number of customers
    y131k
    Sales of electricity
    y132k
    Cut of power w132k
    1 1830958 6122.147 778.277 347030 3241.136 147.510
    2 6441756 5485.296 725.081 1778416 2903.980 200.178
    3 7866277 5821.292 725.323 2168359 3081.860 199.937
    4 6560395 4865.888 727.327 1791210 2576.059 198.585
    5 3804176 3622.099 752.559 855850 1917.582 169.308
    6 8009286 3996.064 734.466 2078242 2115.563 190.588
    7 8271676 5563.775 693.427 2196721 2945.528 184.154
    8 3602333 6217.991 718.110 962150 3291.877 191.801
    9 3213868 3906.777 752.079 691239 2068.293 161.757
    10 3683518 3635.504 722.771 953080 1924.679 187.011
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tozee and calculations time cut off of electricity

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    Table 16.  The Customer level desirable and undesirable outputs.
    DMU Customer 3 (division 14) Customer 4 (division 15)
    Number of customers y141k Sales Of Electricity y142k Cut of power w141k Number Of customers y151k Sales Of electricity y152k Cut of power w151k
    1 16364 2700.947 6.956 7663 5942.083 3.257
    2 37745 2419.983 4.249 57685 5323.964 6.492
    3 51444 2568.217 4.743 65030 5650.077 5.996
    4 37480 2146.715 4.155 53509 4722.774 5.932
    5 42460 1597.985 8.400 28981 3515.567 5.733
    6 45458 1762.970 4.169 73999 3878.533 6.786
    7 624532 2454.607 52.355 72330 5400.135 6.064
    8 106646 2743.231 21.259 24231 6035.109 4.830
    9 54540 1723.578 15.103 30174 3791.871 7.061
    10 110055 1603.899 21.595 23562 3528.578 4.623
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tozee and calculations time cut off of electricity.

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    Table 17.  The material flow (intermediate products desirable outputs) (106 Kwa).
    DMU v(1,3)1(1,3)j v(1,4)1(1,4) v(1,5)1(1,5) v(2,3)1(2,3) v(2,4)1(2,4) v(2,5)1(2,5)
    1 60.307 0 0 2875.091 220.4 758.293
    2 2064.952 203.532 358.519 2336.167 1695.484 258.119
    3 2548.744 1724.993 1130.38 129.687 801.96 1462.15
    4 2860.549 1507.982 1504.277 932.017 1093.177 724.781
    5 503.449 378.483 1765.210 467.063 286.531 1048.213
    6 1839.757 35.852 0 1886.773 285.119 597.451
    7 16.681 2028.841 6074.007 93.521 1421.775 1891.574
    8 0 5307.55 419.537 206.169 1116.091 742.636
    9 203.507 102.486 111.235 570.477 1230.004 589.926
    10 142.515 15401.05 2053.038 1645.455 705.324 120.806
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tolid and calculations million kilo watt hour.

     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV
    Table 18.  The material flow (intermediate products desirable outputs) (106 Kwa).
    DMU v(3,6)1(2,7)j v(3,7)1(3,7) v(4,6)1(4,6) v(4,7)1(4,7) v(5,6)1(5,6) v(5,7)1(5,7)
    1 16849.166 0 0 954.941 0 762.931
    2 6641.271 2846.259 0 6081.337 0 1066.752
    3 0 7144.31 3791.372 0 2015.572 4703.002
    4 4923.416 0 1666.995 3889.655 4277.035 0
    5 1174.200 503.228 1069.482 0 0 8238.071
    6 8439.133 0 0 1214.901 0 2353.958
    7 0 259.243 4179.104 1791.044 10644.237 0
    8 550.870 0 0 6689.385 11825.766 0
    9 0 2796.766 5426.567 0 3625.006 0
    10 7291.361 0 2448.571 0 0 1285.702
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tolid and calculations million kilo watt hour

     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV
    Table 19.  The material flow (intermediate products desirable outputs) (106 Kwa).
    DMU v(6,8)1(6,8) v(6,9)1(6,9) v(6,10)1(6,10) v(6,11)1(6,11) v(7,8)1(7,8) v(7,9)1(7,9)
    1 11438.225 0 0 4902.096 0 499.798
    2 4508.493 1932.211 0 0 0 0
    3 0 0 3942.347 1689.577 8042.661 3446.851
    4 0 7377.474 3161.775 0 2640.531 0
    5 652.777 0 0 1523.146 0 2543.194
    6 0 8184.271 0 0 356.886 0
    7 10062.973 0 0 4312.703 0 1391.858
    8 8402.003 0 0 3600.858 0 4399.742
    9 0 0 2633.465 6144.751 813.691 1898.613
    10 0 6612.050 2833.736 0 827.812 0
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tolid and calculations million kilo watt hour.

     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV
    Table 20.  The material flow (intermediate products desirable outputs) (106 Kwa).
    DMU v(7,10)1(7,10)j v(7,11)1(7,11) v(8,12)1(8,12) v(8,13)1(8,13) v(8,14)1(8,14) v(8,15)1(8,15)
    1 1166.195 0 3888.996 2058.880 1715.834 3774.614
    2 2907.756 6784.863 1532.888 811.529 676.274 1487.803
    3 0 0 2734.506 1447.680 1206.400 2654.080
    4 574.437 377.219 897.781 475.297 396.080 871.375
    5 5934.119 0 221.944 117.500 97.917 215.416
    6 2498.201 713.772 121.341 64.239 53.533 117.772
    7 596.511 0 3421.411 1811.335 1509.446 3320.781
    8 1885.604 0 2856.681 1512.361 1260.300 2772.661
    9 0 0 276.655 146.464 122.054 268.518
    10 0 374.062 296.755 157.106 130.922 288.028
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tolid and calculations million kilo watt hour.

     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV
    Table 21.  The material flow (intermediate products desirable outputs) (106 Kwa).
    DMU v(9,12)1(9,12)j v(9,13)1(9,13) v(9,14)1(9,14) v(9,15)1(9,15) v(10,12)1(10,12) v(10,13)1(10,13)
    1 169.931 89.964 74.970 164.933 396.506 209.915
    2 656.952 347.798 289.832 637.630 988.637 523.396
    3 1171.931 620.434 517.029 1137.463 1340.398 709.622
    4 2508.341 1327.945 1106.621 2434.567 1331.512 704.918
    5 864.686 457.775 381.490 839.254 2017.600 1068.141
    6 2782.652 1473.169 1227.641 2700.809 849.388 449.376
    7 473.232 250.534 208.779 459.311 202.814 107.372
    8 1495.912 791.954 659.961 1451.915 641.105 339.409
    9 645.528 341.750 284.792 626.542 895.378 474.024
    10 2248.097 1190.169 991.808 2181.977 963.470 510.072
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tolid and calculations million kilo watt hour.

     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV
    Table 22.  The material flow (intermediate products desirable outputs) (106 Kwa).
    DMU v(10,14)1(10,14)j v(10,15)1(10,15) v(11,12)1(11,12) v(11,13)1(11,13) v(11,14)1(11,14) v(11,15)1(11,15)
    1 174.922 384.844 1666.713 882.377 735.314 1617.692
    2 436.163 959.559 2306.820 1221.257 1017.714 2238.972
    3 591.352 1300.974 574.456 304.124 253.437 557.560
    4 587.432 1292.350 128.254 67.899 56.583 124.482
    5 890.118 1958.259 517.870 274.166 228.472 502.638
    6 374.830 824.406 242.682 128.479 107.066 235.545
    7 89.477 196.849 1466.319 776.276 646.905 1423.192
    8 282.841 622.250 1224.292 648.155 540.129 1188.283
    9 395.020 869.043 2089.215 1106.055 921.713 2027.768
    10 425.060 935.133 127.181 67.331 56.109 123.441
    Source: http//amar.tavanir.org.ir//tolid and calculations million kilo watt hour.

     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV

    According to fuzzy–weighted average definition, the fuzzy index has been calculated and the entity weights, division weights and the overall weights of the 15 divisions are presented in Table 23.

    Table 23.  The weights of the divisions.
    Supply chains Importance Division Division Overall
    Entity Weights Weight Weight
    Suppliers 0.15 S1 0.45 0.0675
    S2 0.55 0.0825
    Manufacturers 0.20
    M1
    M2
    M3
    0.35
    0.30
    0.35
    0.07
    0.06
    0.07
    Transmitters 0.20 T1
    T2
    0.65
    0.35
    0.13
    0.07
    Distributers 0.15 D1 0.25 0.0375
    D2 0.30 0.045
    D3
    D4
    0.20
    0.25
    0.03
    0.0375
    Customers 0.30 C1 0.27 0.081
    C2 0.24 0.072
    C3
    C4
    0.20
    0.29
    0.06
    0.087

     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV

    We now describe the results obtained in the new proposed approach. First the model is applied to estimate the efficiency score of supply chain 10 (DMUS). All models are solved by a linear programming solver using the GAMS software on a 8 GB RAM, 2.0 GHz desktop computer, the runtime of the computation in this study is negligible in model. The results are listed in Table 24.

    Table 24.  The cooperative efficiency scores of supply chains (DMUs).
    DMU θo φSup1o φSup2o φMan1o φMan2o φMan3o φTra1o φTra2o φDis1o φDis2o φDis3o φDis4o φCus1o φCus2o φCus3o φCus4o
    1 0.75 1 0.39 0.50 1 1 0.18 1 0.14 1 0.41 1 0.91 1 1 1
    2 0.69 1 0.73 0.01 0 1 0.58 0.36 1 0.45 1 1 0.92 0.86 1 0.82
    3 0.83 0.66 0.75 1 0.30 1 1 0.10 0.46 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
    4 0.77 1 1 1 1 0.55 0.43 0.30 1 1 1 0.20 0.82 0.79 0.93 0.82
    5 0.84 0.67 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0.58 0.62 0.46 0.54
    6 0.82 0.99 0.64 1 1 1 0.15 1 0.46 1 1 1 0.91 0.91 0.98 1
    7 0.90 0.72 1 1 1 1 1 0.32 1.13 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
    8 0.73 1 1 1 1 0.66 0.14 0.05 0.04 0.39 1 0.65 1 1 1 1
    9 0.65 1 1 1 1 0.82 0.50 0.04 0.14 1 0.34 0.64 0.61 066 0.38 0.46
    10 0.68 0.63 1 1 1 1 0.18 1 0.57 0.44 1 0.65 0.60 0.58 0.44 0.61

     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV

    The first column of Table 24 represents the global efficiency score of the supply chain. It can be easily seen that no DMU can reach efficiency equal to 1. This implies that all the 10 supply chains can improve their performance in some of the divisions. Supply chain number 7 is the one that reaches the highest score (0.90) while supply chain number 9 is the worst performing one. Columns from 2 to 15 report the efficiency scores of all the 15 divisions. In this way, we can exploit which divisions are more efficient in the various supply chains (looking at the data in columns) and, in parallel, per each DMU which are the divisions that are more efficient and which are the ones to be improved.

    Looking vertically in the tables, the more efficient divisions are divisions 3, 10 and 4, with efficient values (80% and 90% of the total), respectively. This implies that Manufacturers 2 and 3 and Distributer 3 are the more efficient ones concerning to the other divisions. Just three efficient units (30%) are obtained in the case of divisions 6, 8 and 12 (Transmitter 1, Distributer 1 and Customer 1, respectively).

    Looking horizontally at the same table, it is possible to see, for each supply chain, the number of efficient divisions. As expected, DMU 7 has the highest efficiency score and the highest number of efficient divisions (12/15) while DMU 9 has the worst efficiency score and the worst number of efficient divisions (5/15). As an illustration, we consider the seventh supply chain (DMU7).

    As the second column of Table 24 shows, the efficiency score is θ = 0.90 and this DMU has 12 efficient divisions, while divisions 1, 7 and 8 are inefficient (0.72, 0.32, 0.13, respectively). It is possible to compute the values that will render efficient this DMU. In particular, the undesirable output of oil field (gas flaring) could be reduced to 0.72 (756) = 544.32, the undesirable output of the second transmitter could decrease from 61.92 to 61.92 (0.32) = 19.81 and the undesirable output of the first distributor could reduce from 13.6 to 0.13 (13.6) = 1.77.

    Besides, we consider the results of slack variables in the intermediate measures, S (1, 3) = −836.28.

    S (1, 4) = 1948.21, S (1, 5) = 5931.98. These values highlight that, for improving the efficiency score, the intermediate measures sent from the oil field of supply chain 7 (DMU7) to manufacturer 1 should decrease, while this measure should increase towards the second and third manufacturers. Looking at the slack variables S (3, 7) = 0, S (4, 7) = 1791.04 and S (5, 7) = 660.63, for DMU7 it can be observed that electricity flows from manufacturers 2 and 3 sent to the second transmitter can increase by 1791.04 and 660.63 106 kwh, respectively. As concerning slack variables related to the connection between transmitters and distribution companies, the only inefficiency is obtained from the first transmitter to the first distributer (S (6, 8) = −8967.26), the other slack variables are null.

    Finally, looking at slack variables of intermediate measures between distributors and customers, all the quantities from distributer 1 to the different final consumers have to be increased (S (8, 12) = 3048.87, S (8, 13) = 1614.11, S (8, 14) = 1345.09, S (8, 15) = 2959.20).

    A similar analysis can be put forward to the remaining supply chains. According to the results of the slack variable in the inputs constraints this value shows that for improving the efficiency score, the first input of the oil field in supply chain 7 (DMU7) should decrease from 46800 to 27244.737.

    Looking at the slack variables for DMU7, S1 (8) = 199.54, S2 (8) = 11297.82. It can be seen that the first input of distributer 1 should decrease from 3639 to 3439.446 and the second input should decline from 37153 to 25855.180, the other slack variables in input constraints are null. Specially, we consider the results of variables λ and μ in supply chain 7(DMU7) as follows:

    µ (1, 2) = 0.025, µ (7, 2) = 0.482, µ (8, 5) = 0.757, λ (1, 2) = 0.975, µ (7, 2) = 0.482, λ (8, 5) = 0.243.

    These values shows that, for improving the efficiency score, the first supplier (oil field) and the second transmitter inputs of supply chain 2 (DMU2) are utilized for cleaning up flaring gas and decline loose of power in supply chain 7 (DMU7).As similar the first distributer active level of supply chain 5 (DMU5) scaling down to decrease undesirable outputs while the other undesirable outputs have remained active in the supply chain (DMU7).

    Let us now try to detect the determinants of the success of supply chain 7 (DMU7) in terms of efficiency. DMU7 presents the higher penetration level of RES concerning the other DMUs.

    Approximately, supply chain 7 comprises 43% power plants operated by renewable technology. In particular, this DMU contains 29% wind, solar and 14% hydropower plants that produce a considerably amount of electricity in production processes without pollution emission. The use of renewable plants limits the needs of fossil fuels like gas and diesel and limits greenhouse gas emissions.

    It is worth mentioning that supply chain 7 as the best performing unit has the most renewable power plants, while supply chain number 5 belongs to the second-highest efficiency score contain 25% solar, and wind power plants, the other hand supply chain number 5 has the number conventional power plants consume fuel oil, natural gas and diesel more than DMU number 7, therefore supply chain number 5 produce huge amount of air pollutants such as sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxides. As illustration, we consider the ninth supply chain (DMU9). According to Table 24 supply chain number 9 is the worst performing unit with efficiency score θ = 0.65 and this supply chain has seven power plants: one of them utilizes hydro technology and one power plant operates with renewable technology while the other power plants consume fossil fuels to produce electricity. More in detail, supply chain 9 includes 14% of wind, solar and 14% of hydropower plants, but power plants produce minimal intermediate measures in different divisions while the rest is composed of nonrenewable plants with high emission levels.

    Now we investigate what factors inspire the highest efficiency score in supply chain number 7 (DMU7). Indeed, it is important to know which factors effect on efficiency score specifically, we are interested in knowing which indexes play an important role in the most efficient of the supply chain. According to table 23 DMU7 comprise 80% efficient divisions.the second supplier (gas field), all of the manufacture (power plants), the first transmitter, the second, third and fourth distributer and customers of residential, public, agriculture and industry divisions are efficient in supply chain 7. Firstly, the gas field of supply 7 transfer approximately 60% average annual production of gas to power plants to electricity production and power plants transmit about 63% annual maximum capacity to regional power companies.

    Secondly, undesirable outputs of manufacture number1 have the least amount of pollution emissions of NOX, SOX and CO2 gases between 10 supply chains. As concerning distributers capacity, the least capacity of distribution line in 10 supply chains belongs to second and third distribution companies in supply chain 7 (DMU7) and desirable outputs in residential, public and Agriculture divisions contain the most amount in the whole of supply chains. Thirdly, amount of oil and gas transmit to the third power plant, the electricity sent to the first transmitter and electricity dispatch to the residential division has the most measure in all of the supply chains.

    Finally, according to Table 24, the first column shows the weights of entities to supply chains. The most weights of entities have been assigned to customer, manufacture, transmitter and supplier divisions respectively, therefore customer divisions have a fundamental role to distinguish the most efficient supply chain. Accordingly, if the supply chain wants to obtain the highest efficiency, it should pay attention noticeable to customer and manufacture divisions.

    According to the model proposed in Section 4, a further analysis has been conducted by considering a non-cooperative network in which each member of each stage is evaluated separately by model (8). After finding the efficiency scores of each division of the network, the efficiency of each DMU is computed as a weighted average of the efficiency scores of each division by (9) equation. It has been proved that this second methodology has lower efficiency scores than the previous one (for proof see [21]). In Table 25 the results of this second analysis have been reported.

    Table 25.  The non-cooperative efficiency scores of the considered supply chains (DMUs).
    D
    M
    U
    ϕhso ϕSup1o ϕSup2o ϕMan1o ϕMan2o ϕMan3o φTra1o ϕTra2o ϕDis1o ϕDis2o ϕDis3o ϕDis4o ϕCus1o ϕCus2o ϕCus3o ϕCus4o
    1 0.73 1 0.39 0.50 1 1 0.17 1 0.14 0.57 0.41 1 0.91 1 1 1
    2 0.67 1 0.73 0.01 0 1 0.58 0.36 1 0.63 1 1 0.92 0.86 1 0.82
    3 0.82 0.66 0.75 1 0.30 1 1 0.10 0.46 0.73 1 1 1 1 1 1
    4 0.76 1 1 1 1 0.55 0.43 0.30 1 0.69 1 0.20 0.82 0.79 0.92 0.82
    5 0.84 0.67 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0.96 1 1 0.58 0.62 0.45 0.54
    6 0.82 0.98 0.64 1 1 1 0.15 1 0.46 0.74 1 1 0.91 0.91 0.98 1
    7 0.89 0.72 1 1 1 1 1 0.32 1.13 0.81 1 1 1 1 1 1
    8 0.73 1 1 1 1 0.66 0.14 0.05 0.35 0.46 1 0.65 1 1 1 1
    9 0.62 1 1 1 1 0.82 0.50 0.03 0.14 0.51 0.34 0.65 0.61 066 0.38 0.46
    10 0.68 0.63 1 1 1 1 0.18 1 0.57 0.39 1 0.65 0.60 0.57 0.44 0.61

     | Show Table
    DownLoad: CSV

    Looking at Table 25, it can be easily checked that the ranking between the 10 supply chains remain unchanged, even if the efficiency scores are slightly lower. It can be noticed that DMU6 and DMU3 in the non-cooperative model have the same efficiency scores. Nevertheless, looking at the efficiency scores of the divisions, DMU6 has 7/15 efficient divisions while DMU3 has 9/15 efficient divisions. In comparison with the overall model, the non-cooperative model can have a more discriminative power concerning the single divisions but a less discriminative on concerning the overall efficiency score. Similar results can be observed by comparing DMU1 and DMU8. Figure 3, present the efficiency scores measured by the overall model of supply chains DMU 10.

    Figure 3.  The overall efficiency scores for 10 supply chain.

    An appropriate performance measurement system is an important requirement for the effective management of a supply chain. To achieve this, the performance evaluation of the entire supply chain is extremely important. This means utilizing the combined resource of the supply chain members in the most efficient way helps to provide competitive and cost-effective products and services. Recently several studies have employed DEA approaches for incorporating undesirable outputs into efficiency and productivity change analysis. This model presents both the overall efficiency score of a supply chain and individual efficiency score of its partners at the same time taking into account undesirable outputs under a week disposability assumption. The proposed multi-stage DEA approach could evaluate the efficiency of a sustainable supply chain when there is an arbitrary number of supplier, manufacturer, transmitter, distributor and customers as each stage have unequal weights. Also, the proposed model can enable decision- makers to simultaneously minimize environmental harmful impact and maximize operational performance while meeting customers’ satisfaction. In particular, this study proposed an approach to sustainability assessment of supply chain which the first priority was environmental performance and the second priority was operational performance. Meanwhile, the two issues of privatization and competition in power industry sectors play an important role in global markets. As an application, this study analyzes the behavior of the Iranian power industry by subdividing the industry into different regions (each region represents a supply chain or DMU) and measures the performance of these regions by considering their electricity utilization and environmental protections. Some insights can be obtained from the analysis to improve the performance and in particular new investments in clean technologies could reduce the undesirable outputs that affect the performance of the different supply chains.

    The proposed approach has methodological limitations in leading environmental performance assessment. The source energy is different among districts. Each region has its essential structure and different conditions for business activity. For instance, southern regions in Iran have noticeable energy sources and the high capacity of power plants respect to other regions. Such regional difference effects on the number of efficiency measures in each regional.The problem considered in this study needs to the further researches in future. Similarity, this study can be conducted for green supply chain management evaluation in the presence of dual-role factors and non-discretionary factors.



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