Enhancing efficiency at Isis Central Sugar Milling Cooperative with WAVE PTX

Located in Childers, Queensland, Isis Central Sugar Milling Cooperative is a locally owned business that takes pride in its efficient, reliable operations. The company also offers sustainable returns to shareholders through its commercial arrangements with Sustainable Energy Infrastructure in Australia. The Mill works with 20 harvesters covering a vast area of approximately 17,000 hectares of farmland daily, processing some 1.2 million tonnes of cane annually to produce one of the world's most valuable agricultural commodities—sugar and by-products. 

The expansive distance that the Sugar Mill's operation encompasses presented communication and resource planning challenges when it relied on a conventional mix of UHF/VHF radios and mobile phones. The wide area & varied terrain also required a large repeater station network to provide sufficient coverage and mitigate communication dead spots. 

For Agtrix, the agricultural supply chain and logistics company that provides fleet and harvest management services to the Mill, the ability to complement the Mill's efficient operations over a large area is paramount. When advancing agricultural farming and communications strategy took centre stage at Agtrix, the management team decided on Motorola Solutions' Wave PTX Push-to-Talk technology to connect its teams confidently with minimal infrastructure investment and to foster tighter integration with its client at the Mill. After implementing the Wave PTX solution, Agtrix was able to streamline and simplify its operations further. It also reduced its fleet size, demonstrating the efficiency gains from enhanced communication capability. 

The Wave PTX's deployment was completed in phases, with each stage demonstrating measurable results and significant communication improvements, leading to greater confidence in expanding Wave PTX's adoption. After successfully implementing Wave PTX across its trucking operations, Agtrix extended the service to its harvesting sector. The technology enabled real-time contact with harvesters, facilitating efficient dispatch of vehicles to where they were most needed and improving visibility and communication within the supply chain. Since then, Agtrix expanded Wave PTX to its rail network, achieving uninterrupted communication across its entire network, even in remote areas. They also equipped maintenance vehicles and field inspection teams with Wave PTX, which provided comprehensive coverage to all logistics and field staff from a single location. 

Beyond reducing the number of phone calls coming to its Traffic Office and, at times, confusion amongst team members, the new one-to-many group communication capability has given better clarity to those who are essential to the same communication - giving and getting timely, accurate updates to truck drivers, semi-trailer and locomotive operators right down to anyone within the relevant fleet team. Workflows at the Control Room were also streamlined, making it possible to coordinate activities across different sites, including remote management from its Cairns site and its UK operations as needed. The integrated GPS functionality also allowed the control room operators real-time visibility via GPS tracking of their truck's locations. 

Since then, Agtrix and Isis Sugar Mill have seen significant improvements in their operational efficiencies and reductions in their operational costs. The enhanced talk group communication has improved team response times and collaboration. A notable impact of Wave PTX's one-to-many communication benefit is Agtrix's ability to triple its transport output, something only possible with an enhanced multi-layered team environment.

Agtrix's managing director, Paul Coveny, says the Wave PTX solution has allowed operations to be managed remotely from the conventional onsite-based control rooms. With the introduction of WAVE devices and cloud management for several of our clients within the agricultural sector, we have seen a shift towards centralised operations, which could only be achieved using this technology. The additional benefit of having GPS tracking functionality within the unit is that it reduces the need for secondary devices to be installed, saving costs and the need for additional resources. 

The technology allows this product to be used in broad-acre farming with complete supply chain visibility, both on the farm and when transiting on highways. This would work well for industries such as grain, cotton, grapes, and rice, where we are starting to speak with key stakeholders.

Motorola Solutions Expansion Technologies Director Logan Caulfield, "The Wave PTX solution is a secure, cloud-based Push-to-Talk (PTT) system that provides voice and multimedia collaboration across teams, including control room capabilities for enhanced operational efficiency. Motorola Solutions is committed to safety and security, and we continue to  invest in research and development to advance what we offer to businesses and public safety users."

"The subscription broadband service is also cost-effective for businesses, requiring minimal infrastructure, and has user-friendly interfaces. Wave PTX is especially beneficial for the agricultural sector as it integrates seamlessly with existing ecosystems and facilitates seamless communication across vast distances."

Please click here to view the Agtrix and Motorola Solutions case study video on their Isis Central Sugar Mills.  For further questions or enquiries about WAVE PTX, please get in touch with Paul Coveny at Agtrix on 1300 424 8749.