A hybrid approach of data envelopment analysis based grey relational analysis: a study on egg yield

Abstract

The aim of the study is to evaluate the effect of conditions of both feeding and the climate in poultry house on production performance in a commercial poultry enterprise with a hybrid approach. In accordance with this purpose, the hybrid approach has two main objectives: i) Determination of the effective period for which the output factors [(chicken survival rate (%), egg yield (%)] are optimized at the same time and the appropriate value ranges for the input factors [temperature (degrees C), humidity (%) and feed per hen (g)] that provide effectiveness ii) Determination of targeted improvement values for the ineffective months to become effective. With this hybrid approach, which is based on the integration of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Grey Relational Analysis (GRA), the effective months are determined by DEA method and a performance rank is performed between the effective months by GRA method. It has been investigated whether the results of different Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques combined with the data fusion technique support the proposed hybrid approach's results. In this context, the proposed hybrid approach was applied to evaluate the monthly production performance of a commercial enterprise with Lohman Brown genus 8000 chickens. According to the findings of the analysis, it was seen that January, March, October, November and December are the months when production performance is high. When these months were ranked among themselves, it was observed that January, March and November are the first three ranks, respectively, and that the rank was also supported by the combined results of different techniques. As a result, in terms of production performance for the enterprise, it can be said that the optimum temperature is 20.25 degrees C-26.41 degrees C, humidity ratio is 47.60%-54.25%, and feed amount per hen is 98-128 g.