Equipment selection decisions which are the most important stage of short and long term surface mine planning have radically influenced the economic life of any mining scenario. Furthermore, equipment selection is also an complex multi-person, multi-criteria decision problem. This study has been directed to the research of an optimal loading-hauling system to a power station to be established in an open pit coal mine located Orhaneli, west of Turkey. Within this paper, the Analytical Hierarchy Process(AHP, non-fuzzy method) and different fuzzy methods are presented as an innovative tool for criteria aggregation in mining decision problems.

The paper is divided into four main sections. The first section provides an overview of the underlying concepts and theories of AHP and multiple attribute decision making in a fuzzy environment and the scope of this type of search. The second section introduces few applications of fuzzy set theory and AHP to mining industry problems reported in the literature. Some of these applications are briefly reviewed in the paper. The third section presents a case study which illustrate the application of the system for equipment selection in surface mining. Details of alternative systems and their criterion of each operation are also given. Finally, the fourth section presents the concluding remarks.