Strategic planning of stone industry of Lorestan province

Iran is the fourth largest producer of dimension stone in the world, which owns nearly 9 percent of global production.On average, annual production of dimension stone is 14 million tons. Due to the many problems such as, lack of technology and modern machinery in the quarry and processing of dimension stone, lots of these resources are disposed as wastes. In this research, the strategic planning of Lorestan dimension stone processing Industry has been investigated using SWOT analysis. Firstly, the factors affecting this industry are identified in four categories of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, are identified using experts' opinion in the mining sector. Then, 50 questionnaires of these factors (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) were prepared and distributed. Both traditional and modern methods were used to analyze the results and select appropriate strategies. In the traditional method, the effect of each factor on the dimension stone processing industry were determined and then the strategic situation of the dimension stone processing industry of Lorestan province was identified using the SWOT, EFE, IFE, IE matrices the results showed, the strategic situation of Lorestan stone processing industry can be considered as defensive situation.