An exploratory factor analysis on issues and constraints in Sri Lankan aggregate quarry industry

Abstract

Mining activities are influenced by stakeholders such as regulators, operators, service providers, customers, residents, and other interest groups. The governing bodies seem to fail to adopt a stakeholder inclusive approach to gain the balance between the interest of the stakeholders and the organisational plans and revenues. Such issues are known at the surface level, but no solid quantitative approach has been used to scientifically prove their existence and associations. Thus, this study aims to find the issues with statistical evidence. Convenient sampling was used due to time restrictions and new work norms to pick a substantial number of respondents. A numerical assignment and logical ordering to qualitative data were done to perform the quantitative analysis. Factor analysis was used to find the principal components and the variables which mainly loaded the components showed significant interpretable correlations. The most significant factors associated with issues in quarry operations and management are found in terms of quality, reliability, and usage of monitoring, application of safety measures, quarry type based hazardous conditions, planning and maintaining quarry activities, combatting drilling issues via site planning, use of initiation technique by quarry type, the impact of environmental and social issues, handling public complaints and strategies to improve quarry operations.