A Study of the Strategic Alliance for EMS Industry: The Application of a Hybrid DEA and GM (1, 1) Approach

Choosing a partner is a critical factor for success in international strategic alliances, although criteria for partner selection vary between developed and transitional markets. This study aims to develop effective methods to assist enterprise to measure the firms' operation efficiency, find out the candidate priority under several different inputs and outputs, and forecast the values of those variables in the future. The methodologies are constructed by the concepts of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and grey model (GM). Realistic data in four consecutive years (2009–2012) a total of 20 companies of the Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) industry that went public are completely collected. This paper tries to help target company—DMU1—to find the right alliance partners. By our proposed approach, the results show the priority in the recent years. The research study is hopefully of interest to managers who are in manufacturing industry in general and EMS enterprises in particular.