ROCKY POINT MILL is the smallest mill in Australia with an annual crop size of between 200 000 and 300 000 t of cane over the past several years. As such, the manning structure at Rocky Point has evolved to be fundamentally different from most other sugar mills in Australia. Rocky Point has four senior staff members in charge of the mill operations and two staff members handling harvesting and cane supply. There are eight operational people for each shift on an eight-hour shift roster and seven cane truck drivers per shift on a 12-hour shift roster operating for five days per week. The paper outlines the organisational structure at Rocky Point sugar mill, and the implementation of workforce skills to achieve the factory’s operational and health and safety targets. The paper discusses the merits and drawbacks of running a lean operational workforce.