Published: December 19, 2010 |

Dessureault’s team of 26 is now working on a project for Peabody's North Antelope Rochelle coal mine in Wyoming.

Sean Dessureault
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Sean Dessureault has spent the last 15 years working on revolutionizing the mining industry through research, consulting and products he offers.

Dessureault, 36, is an associate professor in the Mining and Geological Engineering department at the University of Arizona as well as the president and founder of Mining Information Systems and Operations Management (MISOM) Consulting Services Inc., which provides high-tech services to the industry.

Unlike research labs that create something that could have a commercial application, Dessureault’s MISOM lab works in reverse. “Almost all the research we do in this lab started off as a business enterprise or business activity,” he said. “We conduct research work based on the needs in the industry and we can go back and say with this amount of additional funding we can provide you with much more. So we loop all the research back around into commercial projects.”

While earning his mater’s and doctorate degrees at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Dessureault consulted with Canadian mines on automation.

“I found out that there weren’t many people doing it around the world and there was an interest from the industry, so I started my consulting business then,” he said.

After earning his degrees, Dessureault moved to northern Ontario. One day the phone rang with a caller ID that read Arizona. Upon seeing it his wife yelled out, “he’ll take the job.” He moved to Tucson in 2002 to join the staff of the University of Arizona.

The move wasn’t just to warm up his bones — Dessureault said mining has a rich history and is still a very large industry in Arizona.

“If you were to take Arizona as a separate country, it would be one of the top copper producers in the world,” he said. “The University of Arizona is known as a global leader in mining and engineering technology. A lot of great technology and many legends in the industry have come out of the UA. Ultimately, they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

UA recruiters encouraged Dessureault’s entrepreneurialism.

“The freedom to pursue commercial enterprise while doing research was really the best of both worlds,” he said.

On the business side, Dessureault provides technology strategy, mine automation, data warehouse development, business process alignment, and technology selection and implementation.

The research group takes each of these items to the next level to maximize the potential.

“We have so many data sources on mines these days,” he said. “They are getting buried in data, but are starving for information. We are providing solutions to get that information.”

Dessureault’s team of 26 is now working on a project for the North Antelope Rochelle coal mine in Wyoming. The mine is completely integrated and mine operators can track virtually any piece of information they want through the software and hardware provided by Dessureault.

“This is the largest coal mine in North America, if not in the world,” he said. “We have the complete operation automated from tracking the fleet, to tracking where a specific piece of coal was dug up from.”

The process tracks the loads as they are crushed and sent into one of five silos and introduced to a blending system.

“Peabody Energy, which owns the mine, has about 70 different contracts with different power plants for this mine and each one requires a specific recipe of coal to burn,” he said. “Now we are working on the algorithms to build the IT system that will calculate the optimum blend automatically for each train car load to each plant.”

The tracking system allows the mine to calculate the quality of coal coming out. The mine receives less money for coal that is not up to the quality that was promised but also gets a premium for coal that is better than what was contracted for.

“So there is potential to optimize each blend to make sure you are getting the maximum profits with each load of coal that heads out the door,” he said.

Another research project Dessureault is working on will transform the maintenance or repair schedule of mining vehicles. Currently, most equipment uses technology that relays engine hours of operation. Each piece of equipment has a maintenance schedule based on engine hours.

“The right data algorithms will transform the maintenance of our fleets,” he said. “Sensors in the truck that communicate with the vehicle’s computer which communicates back to a control room will be able to instruct someone there is an issue. When the truck has the intelligence to tell us that, there will be a huge savings cost to actually replace a part when it needs to be replaced and not based solely on engine hours.”

The other transformation Dessureault wants in the mining industry is to overhaul underground mining operations the same way Tucson-based Modular Mining transformed surface mining 20 years ago.

“There’s a lot of research opportunity to transform fleet management in underground mining operations,” Dessureault said. “The GPS sensors that have been used to track people and a fleet in surface mines lose the GPS signal when they go underground. But there is a technology that exists now that was originally developed for soldiers who had to enter caves and it can be used to track all the people and equipment underground. This will boost efficiency, productivity and increase the safety. Should there be an accident you could track people and know how many people were trapped and where they are.”

Underground mining rescues is something else Dessureault wants a hand in —partially because he worked on automated systems underground for the last 15 years.

“I actually thought a robotic response to underground rescue had already been done,” he said. “Then, in April with the accident in West Virginia, they couldn’t send rescuers in because of the smoke and fumes. I was shocked we didn’t have a robotic response ready for this kind of a situation. The technology has been proven because I was working with it in the mid 1990s.”

For the future, Dessureault plans on applying for a grant to travel to the major mine companies around the world and their respective governments to pitch the idea of a global underground robotic rescue response to mining disasters.

“Anytime these accidents happen, even if it’s a small mine, it is a black mark on the industry,” he said. “It wouldn’t take much from each company if there was a global interest in it and it would be a huge life saver in the future. I think it is just going to take someone who knows the industry and the technology to pitch the idea.”

By Joe Pangburn, Inside Tucson Business

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