The study aims to appraise the efficiency of 28 cement-producing Indian companies for the year 2022–23, applying an innovative combination of various multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches. Initially, output-oriented data envelopment analysis (DEA) and super-radial DEA are employed to examine operational productivity and compute super-efficiency scores, considering three outputs and four inputs. The analysis reveals that 71% of the companies exhibit pure technical efficiency, while 54% demonstrate scale and overall technical efficiency. Among the operationally proficient companies, 60% are small ones, suggesting that industry powerhouses struggle to leverage economies of scale effectively. Furthermore, the super-efficiency scores, alongside financial productivity proxies – F-score, G-score, C-score, and M-score – served as parameters for applying multi-criteria analysis. Accordingly, the criterion weight and rank of the companies are determined using LOgarithmic Percentage Change-driven Objective Weighting (LOPCOW) and Axial Distance-based Aggregated Measurement (ADAM) methods, and Mangalam Cement appears as the frontrunner. However, different techniques of multi-criteria analysis may provide varied rankings due to deviations in computational methodology. Therefore, to strengthen the appraisal process, a two-phase sensitivity analysis was conducted, revealing a strong and significant association, as indicated by rank correlation coefficients and Friedman’s test. Eventually, the paper consolidated the varied performance scores using the Copeland method, and Barak Valley Cements emerges as the outperformer. The final rank indicates that among the top 10 firms, 40% are small players, while within the bottom 10, 30% are large and mid-sized firms. Moreover, the decision of big players to acquire efficient small companies post 2022–23 aligns with our findings.
Sen et al. (Fri,) studied this question.