Prisma, a Finnish hypermarket chain, used efficiency analysis to improve performance

Prisma, a Finnish hypermarket chain, grew significantly during the 1990s but faced tough competition from other chains, requiring a competitive strategy. The strategy required metrics to be developed, incorporating multiple output and input measures and an efficiency analysis of the individual stores based on these metrics. During the project, multiple operations research tools were used to improve company performance, including multivariate statistics, data envelopment analysis and some of its extensions (notably, value efficiency analysis), and multiple-objective linear programming. We focus on what we consider the most interesting parts of the application and our involvement in the process.