Evaluating efficiency in water and sewerage services: An integrated DEA approach with DOE and PCA
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Evaluating the performance of service organizations like Water and Sewerage companies is essential for optimal operations, high-quality service, and cost efficiency. This paper introduces a model using data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess the efficiency of operational units within such companies. The selection of key performance indicators is complicated by the numerous inputs and outputs, each affecting systems and activities differently. To enhance DEA model performance due to the imbalance between the number of inputs/outputs and the number of units under evaluation, this research integrates design of experiments (DOE) and principal component analysis (PCA) for variable screening and data reduction, creating new linear combinations with minimal information loss. These methods represent a new direction in handling numerous variables in DEA models. Addressing unit heterogeneity by removing environmental factors from inputs reduces research errors. A case study showed that some units can achieve high efficiency with fewer inputs and more valuable outputs. The findings offered managerial insights for informed decision-making and strategic planning, optimizing resources in line with the company's mission and vision. This methodology ultimately improves service reliability, customer satisfaction, and environmental sustainability. The graphical abstract has been simplified to enhance readability and focus on the primary methodological advances. It emphasizes the integration of PCA for dimensionality reduction, DOE for variable scereening, and DEA for efficiency evaluation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".