Efficiency analysis in steel manufacturing with undesirable outputs

Sustainability and low-carbon economy strategies have been widely studied in recent years. However, researchers often ignore the effects of all energy, economic, and environmental factors. In the absence of financial support especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is critical for developing countries to find innovative and most effective policy mechanisms to achieve sustainability in a cost-effective manner. This requires identifying policies that can yield immediate progress towards several sustainable development goals (SDGs) collectively rather than sacrificing some goals to achieve others This study explore a steel company’s performance in Iran in which its success extremely hinges on the production volume and production line’s efficiency. A steel company includes a complex and interconnected structure leading to difficulty in identifying the inefficiency sources. The black-box production system is first broken into the internal production processes and then network data envelopment analysis is applied. Carbon emissions are considered as an undesirable output when assessing the production system The results show the company efficiency is greater than 90% in 60% of a year. Efficiency measures are in turn discussed to provide some insights in a way that helps operations managers increase manufacturer’s profitability along with gaining environmental sustainability.