The efficient use of drilling machines is one of the key factors that are considered in the economic evaluation of mining operations. A prediction of penetration rate is necessary to work in a cost effective way. In this work, drilling parameters such as air pressure, specific advance pressure, rotation speed, and bit diameter were taken into account to optimize the penetration rate of a rotary percussive drilling in the Hadjer Soud quarry using Taguchi and Surface Response Methodology. The experiments were carried out on the basis of a mixed experimental array Taguchi L-18 and were analyzed using signal/noise ratio (S/N), variance analysis and regression analysis. From the optimization and the experimental analyses carried out, the results show that air pressure is statistically the most dominant factor in the rotary -percussive drilling in the quarry of Hadjer Soud with a contribution of 59.90%. The Taguchi method was used to determine the optimal rational operating values a drill bit diameter of 115 mm (level 1), the specific advance pressure of 50 Kgf/cm(2) (level 2), at a rotation speed of 55 Rpm (level 3) and an air pressure of 17 Bars (level 3). A mathematical model was developed for the penetration rate to understand the effect of the control factors on the response. The predicted values are compared with the experimental data and are seen to be in good agreement. The optimal values obtained during the optimization of the study by the Taguchi method and the response surface model (RSM) were then validated by confirmatory experiments. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.