Application of Entropy Method for Estimating Factor Weights in Mining-Method Selection for Development of Novel Mining-Method Selection System

Mining-method selection (MMS) is one of the most critical and complex decision-making processes in mine planning. Therefore, it has been a subject of several studies for many years culminating with the development of different systems. However, there is still more to be done to improve and/or create more efficient systems and deal with the complexity caused by many influencing factors. This study introduces the application of the entropy method for feature selection, i.e., select the most critical factors in MMS. The entropy method is applied to assess the relative importance of the factors influencing MMS by estimating their objective weights to then select the most critical. Based on the results, ore strength, host-rock strength, thickness, shape, dip, ore uniformity, mining costs, and dilution were identified as the most critical factors. This study adopts the entropy method in the data preparation step (i.e., feature selection) for developing a novelMMS system that employs recommendation system technologies. The most critical factors will be used as main variables to create the dataset to serve as a basis for developing the model for the novel-MMS system. This study is a key step to optimize the performance of the model.