Integrating fuzzy analytical hierarchy process and data envelopment analysis for performance management in automobile repair shops

In today's competitive situation, with service industries sprouting at an incredible rate, managing service performance becomes an essential strategy for success and survival. The automotive service industry is one such industry where managing service performance becomes essential for successful operations. In automobile repair shops, the various dimensions considered for service performance include cost, time and service quality dimensions. In service quality measurement, vagueness and uncertainty lead to the insufficient and imprecise capture of the judgements of decision makers. Hence, in this paper, the authors use fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (fuzzy AHP) for the accurate measurement of service quality. The Service Quality Measure (SQM) from fuzzy AHP, the cost dimensions (generated revenue and operating cost) and the time dimension (productive service time) are provided to the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model to measure the efficiency of automobile repair shops. In addition, the results from DEA also provide the efficiency targets for all Decision-Making Units (DMUs) through a comparison with benchmark units. The integrated approach ensures the accurate measurement of service performance and provides efficient targets for each considered automobile unit. [Received 31 January 2008; Revised 09 June 2008; Accepted 19 December 2008]