A COMPLEMENTARY APPROACH BASED ON DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS TO ASSESS INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING HIGHER EDUCATION UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS IN BRAZIL

This paper proposes a complementary approach to assess the performance of Industrial Engineering undergraduate programs within the Brazilian Higher Education System. This approach presents an alternative Composite Indicator formulation derived from a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model and the Benefit-of-Doubt (BoD) approach. This method enhances comparability among programs across diverse Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) by optimizing weights and incorporating weight restrictions. The application of the novel approach was conducted with the analysis of 73 undergraduate programs within the Brazilian Federal Public System in 2019, the study identified both programs with suboptimal performance levels and benchmark programs showcasing best practices. This feature of the BoD model can support the HEIs assessed as suboptimal in pursuing improvement opportunities in a benchmarking exercise. The incorporation of Weight Restrictions (WRs) enables a more comprehensive consideration of key performance indicators (KPIs) within the Preliminary Program Grade (CPC) framework, thereby revealing additional improvement opportunities. This research contributes to the field by integrating DEA and BoD into the official STEM performance criteria framework for the first time, offering insights into evaluating undergraduate Industrial Engineering programs within Brazilian HEIs.