M Rostamy Malkhalifeh - Department of Mathematics, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
E Mollaeian - Ph.D. student, Industrial Department of management, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
S Shezri - h.D. student, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

That nowadays many organizations play as a network structure indicates it is undeniable to use of network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models. Due to the fact that the targets can play an essential role in practice, it indicates that they are the best keys for the inefficient Decision Making Units (DMUs) to improve their performance. In many DEA applications DMUs experience similar situations so benchmarking analyses in those states should identify common best practice in their management plan. The main idea of the current paper is founding the closest efficient target for each network DMU. According this issue, this paper has utilized a DEA- based approach for benchmarking that identifies a common best practice frontier as the facet of the DEA efficient frontier spanned by the technically efficient DMUs in a common references group.

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Network DEA; Benchmarking, Target Setting