Machine Screen & Controller Services — Innisfail
South Johnstone Mill, banana packing operations, and the Mourilyan bulk terminal. We service the Cassowary Coast's industrial equipment.
Innisfail and the Cassowary Coast run some of FNQ's heaviest industrial automation. The South Johnstone sugar mill, the Mourilyan bulk sugar terminal loading ships at 1,900 tonnes per hour, and the banana packing operations that feed the country — all running PLCs and touchscreens that somebody needs to support.
What We Service in Innisfail
MSF Sugar — South Johnstone Mill (~10 min from Innisfail) — Part of MSF's network producing 600,000 tonnes of raw sugar annually. Full mill automation: juice processing, crystallisation, centrifuges, bagasse-fired boiler controls, and cane railway signalling. Bradken's Boogan factory nearby recently built 1,000 six-tonne cane bins for MSF — that's the scale of operation here.
Mourilyan Harbour — Bulk Sugar Terminal (~15 min south) — Operated by Ports North and Sugar Terminals Limited. Rail-mounted gantry loader at 1,900 tonnes per hour, handling approximately 26 vessels and 525,500 tonnes of cargo annually. All automated conveyor, weighing, and loading systems. Also handles live cattle and woodchip exports.
Banana Packing Operations — Australian Banana Company (LaManna Premier Group) runs major packing facilities here. Automated grading and sorting lines, ripening rooms with ethylene gas concentration control, temperature management, and cold chain systems. Multiple smaller family packing sheds throughout the district run similar equipment at smaller scale — often with imported Chinese controllers that nobody else will support.
Tully Sugar Mill (~50 min south, owned by COFCO) — One of Australia's largest mills, crushing at 700 tonnes per hour with 3 steam boilers firing bagasse. State-of-the-art process control systems. Their harvest scheduling system tracks cane variety, age, field number, harvest time, weight, and lab analysis — an integrated SCADA/MES system.
Innisfail Challenges
This is the wettest part of Australia. Innisfail and Tully get 3,500mm+ of rain per year. Water ingress, corrosion, and flooding are constant threats to industrial equipment. If your panel enclosure isn't sealed properly, moisture will kill the electronics — and we've seen plenty of touchscreens die from water damage in this region.
This is also cyclone country. Cyclone Larry (2006) and Yasi (2011) devastated the region. Equipment needs to withstand extreme weather or be properly protected. After a cyclone event, recovery of damaged control systems is exactly the kind of work we do.
Crushing season (June to November) means maintenance windows are tight at the mills. If you need automation work done, the off-season is the time — not when you're crushing 24/7.