In 2019, Wilmar Sugar initiated a sugarcane-locomotive control-system upgrade project. Whilst the initial driver for this project was to address equipment obsolescence, the charter for the project subsequently set goals to improve the safety, reliability, productivity, maintainability, usability and cost of the existing locomotive control-system design. The project focused on leveraging off Wilmar’s readily available end users, system maintainers and technical experts to inform the new solution. This approach heavily contributed to a very successful project. The project took a risk-centered approach to the review and solution and used Design Thinking principles throughout each project stage. Formal processes that formed part of the overall control system upgrade were: Facilitated HAZOP/CHAZOP processes; Functional requirements specification based on reviewed use cases; Safety requirements specification and verification to AS (IEC) 62061; Stakeholder engagement workshops and independent reviews on prioritized design elements; Failure Modes and Effects Analyses (FMEA) of critical systems; Fit for purpose assessments of all control system components. The upgrade project quantifiably achieved its objectives, achieving reductions to residual plant risks, making reliability-based improvements, increasing productivity, improving maintainability, simplifying operation and achieving significant overall system cost reductions. The key elements of the designed control system that contributed to this outcome include a reduction in equipment count, implementation of alternative technology including moving to a CANBus enabled controller, the implementation of a sophisticated hierarchical alarming and indication strategy, the introduction of a new Remote Shunting Unit (RSU) platform (pending user acceptance testing), adoption of operator-driven changes to the system’s functional specification and the development of detailed system documentation. In 2022, Wilmar Sugar built and commissioned the first prototype of a new-generation sugarcane-locomotive control system that implements this solution in full. This locomotive will be in operational use during the 2023 crushing season.