Technical notes
Selection of opencast mining
equipment by a multi-criteria
decision-making process
Bimal Samanta, B. Sarkar and
S. K. Mukherjee
Sophisticated, capital-intensive, high-capacity earthmoving
machinery is now being used in opencast coal mines to meet
demand in the face of increasing pressure from competitors.
The selection of equipment for coal extraction and over-
burden removal is a determining factor in the viability and
profitability of an opencast operation, seeing that extraction
and haulage account for 50–70% of the total costs.1 Mines
can achieve the targeted production at the minimum unit cost
and gain a competitive edge through selection of the most
appropriate equipment.
The selection of equipment for mining applications is not a
well-defined process and because it involves the interaction of
several subjective factors or criteria, decisions are often com-
plicated and may even embody contradictions. Traditionally,
procurement costs become elevated through a system of pub-
lic tendering to appear as the primary criterion and the major
costs of looking after the equipment during its useful life are
not taken into account.2,3 The cheapest procurement, how-
ever, is not always the best and the most economic approach.
Life-cycle cost (LCC) analysis helps mine management to
justify equipment selection on the basis of the total costs over
its useful life rather than the initial purchase price. Rao and
co-workers4 and Sharma5 have presented accounts of the
methodology for mining equipment selection through LCC
analysis. LCC analysis again considers only the cost para-
meters of similar equipment and other parameters are either
predetermined or not considered.
Various types of cost model have been proposed for appli-
caton to the selection of mining equipment.6–9 Hrebar6 and
Sevim and Sharma7 used net present-value analysis for selec-
tion of a dragline and surface transportation system. Use of a
linear breakeven model has been proposed. 8 Models for
equipment selection and evaluation described by Çelebi9
were aimed at selection of the equipment fleet on the basis of
minimizing the unit stripping cost and maximizing produc-
tion. Linear programming10 and decision-making tools11 may
be applied. General guidelines and a survey related to the
selection of surface mining equipment were discussed by
Martin et al.12 and Srajer et al.13 and Chanda14 reviewed the
fundamental concepts of equipment selection. Erdem and co-
workers presented an extended bench model by means of
which the optimal dragline selection may be made.15 Hall et
al.16 illustrated how reliability analysis can provide mine
Manuscript first received by the Institution of Mining and
Metallurgy on 14 March, 2001; revised manuscript received on
1 February, 2002. Technical note published in Trans. Instn Min.
Metall. (Sect. A: Min. Technol.), 111/Proc. Australas. Inst. Min.
Metall., 307, May–August 2002. © The Institute of Materials,
Minerals and Mining 2002.
A136
management with quantitative information of value for
decision-making about surface mining equipment. Some
researchers1,17,18 have advocated the use of knowledge-based
expert systems. The application of modelling in the selection
of a suitable equipment fleet was discussed by Sturgul and
Jacobson19 and simulation in the context of selecting an ore
haulage system was reported by Lebedev and Staples.20
Most of these decision-making tools either rely on objec-
tive input data, with little or no subjective judgement, or
focus on a single parameter. Multi-criteria decision-making
(MCDM) techniques, such as the Analytical Hierarchy
Process (AHP), can, however, be very useful in encompassing
several subjective criteria with conflicting objectives to arrive
at an eclectic decision. Whereas AHP is well-established
as an operations research technique for decision-making in
engineering applications,21–24 there has been a dearth of
development and application to mining problems. A method
of selecting heavy earthmoving machinery for opencast
mining use has now been developed on the basis of AHP and
is presented here.
Analytical Hierarchy Process
AHP is a powerful MCDM tool developed by Saaty25,26 to
accommodate the different criteria and degrees that
contribute to a decision. It can enable decision-makers to
represent the interaction of multiple factors in complex,
unstructured situations. The procedure is based on pairwise
comparison of decision elements with respect to attributes or
alternatives. The pairwise comparison matrix is of size n ´ n,
where n is the number of elements to be compared.
The AHP-based system decomposes the equipment selec-
tion problem into smaller and smaller constituent parts and
then guides decision-makers through a series of pairwise
comparison judgments between factors related to mining
equipment selection or alternative machines to express the
relative strength or importance of each of these factors or the
intensity of impact of the elements in the hierarchy. These
judgments are then translated into numbers. The overall rat-
ing of each alternative is calculated by multiplying the relative
priorities along each path of the hierarchy leading to a deci-
sion alternative and then adding these products for each
decision alternative.
The decision model is based on structuring the equipment
selection problem into a hierarchy with the overall objective
or focus at the apex; equipment selection criteria that charac-
terize the objective are located in the middle level and the
decision alternatives in the form of degrees are located at the
bottom level. This forms the basic three-level hierarchy of an
AHP model.
Identification of main factors related to mining equip-
ment selection
A mine has set objectives to achieve. It will also have some
strengths and weaknesses of its own in relation to opportuni-
ties in the business environment and competitive threats.
Site-specific parameters, i.e. seam height, seam gradient,
floor condition, stripping ratio, ground pressure, haul dis-
tance and method of operation, are important criteria in the
selection of machinery. In view of the changes in conditions
from one part of a mine to another it is very difficult to for-
mulate definite criteria for the selection of equipment that
satisfy all conditions of the mine simultaneously.
 Return on investment can be maximized by maximizing
production. This depends on the production performance
characteristics of the machine, such as capacity, productivity,
operational requirements, compatibility, manoeuvrability,
etc. Like any business, a mining operation must yield a profit,
so financial aspects, such as the capital cost of acquiring
equipment, the operating cost of the equipment and life-
cycle/ownership cost of the equipment must be considered.
Reliability and maintainability together make the machine
available for coal production, i.e. availability is a function
of machine reliability and maintainability. Reliability is the
extension of the quality of a machine into future time and is
considered as a major barometer of the overall condition of a
machine. All mining equipment is susceptible to breakdown,
deterioration in performance due to age, use and environ-
ment and obsolescence due to advances in technology.
Maintenance action is needed to keep the machines fit for
use.27 Maintenance management decisions themselves
depend on engineering, operational and commercial issues.
Machine performance and maintenance efficiency and
effectiveness depend on the organization’s culture, the opera-
tor’s temperament and capability, performance monitoring
facilities, adaptability to change and the participation of all
departments, etc. Over the life of a mine a mining company
also has social responsibilities. Mining is a hazardous activity
and the overall performance of machine and its operator thus
depend on working conditions and the safety and environ-
ment of the mine or within the machine.
1 2 3 4 5 teria to be incorporated in the AHP model for selection of
None Minor Substantial Fundamental Highest
Importance
Fig. 1 Five-point scale for questionnaire
Fig. 2 Factors affecting selection of mining equipment
To summarize: the important attributes for the selection
of opencast mining equipment may be identified as site/
deposit parameters, organization culture, adaptability to
change, technical features/production performance, the
required operator capability, mine/machine life, performance
monitoring facilities, administration, financial considerations,
the manufacturer’s reputation, delivery lead time and war-
ranty, reliability of the machine, employee participation in
the decision-making process (maintenance and operation),
drive system (hydraulic/electric/mechanical), maintainability,
power required (diesel/electric), available training facilities,
auxiliary machines required, general supervision required,
logistics support or management, degree of automation,
operating condition, safety, working environment and ease of
configuration.
This large number of factors leads to (i) computational
difficulty in making the pairwise comparisons in AHP;
(ii) a time-consuming process; and (iii) an unrealistic out-
come. To overcome these problems main criteria or factors
for equipment selection must be identified. To this end a
survey was conducted at a mine, in which 30 persons selected
from different functional areas, such as the colliery manager,
maintenance engineer (electrical and mechanical), executives
from mine planning and design, a mining equipment design
engineer and personnel from the corporate level of the mining
company took part. They were all directly involved either in
the machine selection and design process or the mine plan-
ning and design process. The objective of this survey was to
assess the importance of the abovementioned factors as cri-
opencast mining equipment. A questionnaire was drawn up
and employed in a pilot survey of five members so that any
weaknesses in the questionnaire could be rectified before the
main survey. The modified questionnaire was then handed
over for completion by the persons selected.
Importance
Highest
Fundamental
Substantial
Minor
None
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 Questionnaire design and results of survey
(1) A five-point scale was used for each of the factors/criteria
relating to the equipment selection problem (Fig. 1).
(2) Respondents were asked to rate each factor according to
this scale.
(3) The mean value of each factor/criterion was calculated as
å(xifj)/N, where xi is the number of respondents who picked a
given rating associated with a particular factor, fj is the cor-
responding value of that rating and N is total number of
respondents.
(4) The results of the survey are given in Fig. 2.
(5) Cutoff values were determined by taking the mean of the
Fig. 3 Factor identification highest (4.8) and the lowest (1.2) mean rating values of all
factors considered in survey.
Table 1 Criteria for mining equipment selection (6) The mean rating values above the cutoff value (Fig. 3) are
considered to indicate important criteria or factors for the
Criteria Sub-criteria
selection of mining equipment. It was found here that mine—
Mine parameter, (a) Seam height; (b) seam gradient; (c) floor site/deposit—parameters (MP), technical features/production
MP condition; (d) stripping ratio; (e) type and performance of the machine (PP), financial considerations
geometry of deposit; (f) bench height; (FC), reliability (R), maintainability (M), mine/machine life
(g) ground pressure; (h) soil characteristics; (ML) and operating condition, safety and environment
(i) weather conditions; (j) material size after (OSE) were important factors for formulation of the AHP
fragmentation; (k) haul distance; (l) method model.
of operation These criteria are presented with sub-criteria in Table 1.
Technical feature/ (a) Equipment type, make, capacity and
production productivity; (b) operational requirement;
Selection of equipment
performance, PP (c) compatibility with other equipment to match
the production system; (d) manoeuvrability For the purpose of evaluation of alternative equipment a
Financial (a) Capital cost for acquiring equipment; selection committee of five was formed that comprised the
consideration, FC (b) operating cost of equipment; (c) life-cycle colliery manager, maintenance engineer, corporate personnel
cost of equipment/ownership cost; (d) power/ from finance and marketing and one member of staff from
fuel consumption mine planning and design. These people are frequently
Reliability, R (a) Design parameter; (b) flexibility; (c) level of involved in equipment selection within the company. The
technology; (d) ergonomics; (e) compliance colliery manager has thorough knowledge and experience of
with coal mine regulation; (f) reliability cost the mine, the maintenance engineer has extensive experience
Maintainability, (a) Ease of maintenance; (b) labour skill/
of machine design and maintenance, and different aspects of
M knowledge; (c) maintenance support/facility
feasibility and actual operation of mine have been studied by
available in mine; (d) spare parts availability;
(e) maintenance cost; (f) logistic time; the member from planning and design; the others are expert
(g) back-up service in their respective fields. Thus, the committee members had
Mine life, ML (a) Reserve available; (b) rate of production, etc. sufficient knowledge, experience and expertise in the selec-
Operating (a) Working conditions in mine; (b) safety and tion of equipment and were well qualified to assign pairwise
condition, safety protective devices in respect of accident; (c) ease comparison judgments for the proposed AHP model.
and environment, of operation; (d) incorporation of protective The committee considered five mobile surface mining
OSE devices for environment pollution; (e) legislative machines for excavating, transporting or loading coal or ore—
requirement designated ME1, ME2, ME3, ME4 and ME5. Sitting
together, the committee members assigned weights to each
1 3 5 7 9 criterion and machine, bearing in mind the mine’s objectives.
This was done through a pairwise comparison. Each criterion
or machine represented by a row in the comparison matrix
Equal Moderate Strong Very strong Extreme
was ranked relative to each of the criteria/machines repre-
Preference
sented by the columns. The pairwise comparisons were made
Fig. 4 Scale for pairwise comparison with the aid of a scale. The scale used in AHP for preparing

Fig. 5 AHP model for machine selection

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the pairwise comparison matrix is a discrete scale from 1 to 9, Fig. 5 depicts the hierarchy of the problem. The first level
as illustrated in Fig. 4. The next step was to find the relative represents the overall objective, which is to rate the most suit-
priorities of criteria or alternatives implied by these compar- able equipment available. At the second level are placed
isons. The relative priorities are worked out from a given attributes, such as mine parameters, production performance,
judgment matrix according to the following procedure: financial considerations, reliability, maintainability, etc. At
(a) multiply the elements in each row with each other; the third level are the five alternative machines that need to
(b) take the nth root where n is the number of elements in the be ranked. There are seven criteria (identified from the sur-
row; and (c) next normalize the numbers by dividing them vey) on the basis of which a machine is judged. So the order
with their sum. The five machines were then evaluated by the of the matrix is 7 ´ 7.
AHP model in terms of the criteria discussed above. Table 2 presents a pairwise comparison of the attributes as
evaluated by the committee. It is found from the comparison
(Table 2 and Fig. 6) that technical features/production per-
Table 2 Pairwise comparison matrix of attributes formance (PP) is most important (priority = 0.3213) and it is
followed by the mine parameter (priority = 0.2148). Again,
PP MP R FC M OSE ML Priority the comparison of each machine based on a particular factor
PP 1 2 4 1.5 5 6 7 0.3213
MP 1/2 1 2 1.25 4 5 6 0.2148 Table 4 Comparison of mine parameters, MP
R 1/4 1/2 1 .75 2 4 5 0.1268
FC 2/3 .8 1.33 1 3 5 7 0.1943 ME1 ME2 ME3 ME4 ME5 Priority
M 1/5 1/4 1/2 1/3 1 3 4 0.0756
OSE 1/6 1/5 1/4 1/5 1/3 1 2 0.0397 ME1 1 1/4 1/5 1/7 1/2 0.0449
ML 1/7 1/6 1/5 1/7 1/4 1/2 1 0.0275 ME2 4 1 1/3 1/5 3 0.1325
ME3 5 3 1 1/3 4 0.2522
lmax = 7.2094, C.I. = 0.0349, C.R. = 0.02467. PP, production per- ME4 7 5 3 1 6 0.5028
formance; MP, mine parameter; R, reliability; FC, financial ME5 2 1/3 1/4 1/6 1 0.0676
considerations; M, maintainability, OSE, operating conditions,
safety and environment. lmax = 5.2359, C.I. = 0.05898, C.R. = 0.04964

Fig. 6 Comparison of attributes

Fig. 8 Comparison of machines with reference to mine parameter

Table 3 Comparison of technical feature/production per-
formance, PP
Table 5 Comparison of reliability, R
ME1 ME2 ME3 ME4 ME5 Priority
ME1 ME2 ME3 ME4 ME5 Priority
ME1 1 1/2 1/3 1/5 1/7 0.0493
ME2 2 1 1/2 1/4 1/6 0.076 ME1 1 1/6 1/8 1/4 1/3 0.0422
ME3 3 2 1 1/2 1/4 0.1355 ME2 6 1 1/2 2 3 0.2683
ME4 5 4 2 1 1/3 0.2410 ME3 8 2 1 3 4 0.4308
ME5 7 6 4 3 1 0.4982 ME4 4 1/2 1/3 1 2 0.1594
ME5 3 1/3 1/4 1/2 1 0.0993
lmax = 5.11035, C.I. = 0.0275, C.R. = 0.0232.
lmax = 5.05484, C.I. = 0.01371, C.R. = 0.01154.

Fig. 7 Comparison of machines with reference to production

performance Fig. 9 Comparison of machines with reference to reliability

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is placed in the matrix. So seven matrices are formed. ensure accuracy. The consistency index (C.I.) of the above-
Since the number of machines is five, the order of the mentioned matrix is computed as28
matrix is 5 ´ 5. Tables 3–9 present pairwise comparison of
the machines according to each of the attributes. The priori- C.I. = ( lmax – n)/(n–1)
ties of the machines against each attribute are presented in
graphical form in Figs. 7–13. From the tables and the corre- where lmax is maximum or principal eigenvalue and n is size
sponding figures it is found that when judged by the of the matrix. The random consistency index (R.I.) is given
attributes of production performance/technical features, mine by
parameter, reliability, financial considerations, maintainabil-
ity, operating conditions, safety and environment and mine R.I. = 1.98 (n–2)/n.
life the most appropriate machines are, respectively, ME5,
ME4, ME3, ME2, ME1, ME5 and ME1. The consistency ratio is given by C.I./R.I.
Since the comparison is based on the subjective evaluation
of the committee members, a consistency ratio is required to
Table 8 Comparison of operating conditions, safety and
environment, OSE
Table 6 Comparison of financial considerations, FC
ME1 ME2 ME3 ME4 ME5 Priority
ME1 ME2 ME3 ME4 ME5 Priority
ME1 1 1/2 1/4 2 1/6 0.0754
ME1 1 1/5 1/3 3 5 0.1421 ME2 2 1 1/3 3 1/5 0.1185
ME2 5 1 2 6 7 0.4755 ME3 4 3 1 5 1/2 0.2810
ME3 3 1/2 1 3 5 0.2648 ME4 1/2 1/3 1/5 1 1/7 0.0488
ME4 1/3 1/6 1/3 1 2 0.0735 ME5 6 5 2 7 1 0.4763
ME5 1/5 1/7 1/5 1/2 1 0.0441

Fig. 10 Comparison of machines with reference to financial Fig. 12 Comparison of machines with reference to operating con-
considerations ditions, safety and environment

Table 7 Comparison of maintainability, M Table 9 Comparison of mine life, ML

ME1 ME2 ME3 ME4 ME5 Priority ME1 ME2 ME3 ME4 ME5 Priority

ME1 1 3 2 5 7 0.4299 ME1 1 2 3 5 6 .4258

ME2 1/3 1 1/3 3 4 0.1563 ME2 1/2 1 2 4 5 .2744
ME3 1/2 3 1 4 5 0.2913 ME3 1/5 1/4 1 3 4 .1731
ME4 1/5 1/3 1/4 1 2 0.0746 ME4 1/5 1/4 1/3 1 2 .0763
ME5 1/7 1/4 1/5 1/2 1 0.0479 ME5 1/6 1/5 1/4 1/2 1 .0504

lmax = 5.20686, C.I. = 0.0517, C.R. = 0.0435. lmax = 5.0972, C.I. =.0243, C.R. = .02046

Fig. 11 Comparison of machines with reference to maintainability Fig. 13 Comparison of machines with reference to mine life

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 lmax, the consistency index and consistency ratio of the
corresponding matrices are shown below the respective tables
(Tables 2–9). It is found from all the tables that the con-
sistency index and consistency ratio of the respective
comparison matrix are less than 10%. This indicates that the
committee is exhibiting coherent judgment in specifying the
pairwise comparison of the criteria or alternatives. The over-
all rating of each machine is computed by adding the product
of the relative priority of each criterion and the relative prior-
ity of the machine considering the corresponding criteria, e.g.
Overall rating of machine ME1
unique in its identification of multiple attributes, minimal
data requirement and minimal time consumption. Here the
most suitable mining machine has been selected from a group
by taking into consideration different criteria applicable in a
mining situation. The model can be expanded by incorporat-
ing the sub-criteria listed in Table 1.
Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to the respondents, committee
members and mine management for their kind cooperation in
carrying out the study. The anonymous referees are thanked
for their valuable comments.

= 0.3213 ´ 0.0493 + 0.2148 ´ 0.0449 + 0.1268 ´ 0.0422 References

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Authors

Bimal Samanta is a lecturer and head of the Department of Mining

Survey at Asansol Polytechnic, West Bengal. He graduated in mining
engineering from Bengal Engineering College, Calcutta University,
gained a M.Tech. degree in operations research from Burdwan
University, India, and subsequently acquired some ten years’ experi-
ence at coal mines in India.

Address: 4/1/4 Kuchil Ghosal Lane, Kadamtala, Howrah 1, West

Bengal 711101, India.

Bijan Sarkar received B.E., M.E. and Ph.D. degrees from Jadavpur
University, India. After a short period in industry he returned to
Jadavpur University, where he is now a reader in production engi-
neering.

S. K. Mukherjee obtained B.E. and M.E. degrees in mechanical

engineering from Jadavpur University, India, and a Ph.D. from the
Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata. He was subsequently
active in research at Jadavpur and is now Vice-Chancellor of Birla
Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra, Ranchi, India. He is also
Chairman of the Production Engineering Division Board of the
Institution of Engineers (India).

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