Deriving preference order of open pit mines equipment through MADM methods: Application of modified VIKOR method

In multiple attribute decision making (MADM) problem, a decision maker (DM) has to choose the best alternative that satisfies the evaluation criteria among a set of candidate solutions. It is generally hard to find an alternative that meets all the criteria simultaneously, so a good compromise solution is preferred. The VIKOR method was developed for multi-criteria optimization of complex systems. This method focuses on ranking and selecting from a set of alternatives in the presence of conflicting criteria. It introduces the multi-criteria ranking index based on the particular measure of ‘‘closeness” to the ‘‘ideal” solution. To deal with the uncertainty and vagueness from humans’ subjective perception and experience in decision process, this paper presents an evaluation model based on deterministic data, fuzzy numbers, interval numbers and linguistic terms. Combination of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and entropy method was applied for attribute weighting in this proposed MADM method. To demonstrate the potential of the methodology, the proposed method is used for surface mine equipment selection problems. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.