• The overall strategic management of the pan stage is quite difficult.

• Often the pan stage is managed in a sub-optimal manner because an overview of operations encompassing various sections is not available.

• The system seeks to provide a unifying structure to assist pan stage operators in making early decisions with respect to sugar quality, sugar recovery and minimization of steam consumption on the total pan stage.

• The smart supervisory control system is a hybrid fuzzy expert system incorporating fuzzy logic, explanatory capabilities and industrial process models of the crystallisation stage.

• Presently the most difficult part of process modelling has been completed and the construction of the advisory system is under way.

• The system hopes to contribute both to the field of fuzzy logic based expert system design and to the development of industrial process models for the crystallisation stage within a sugar factory.

• The project contributors would like to thank the staff at Racecourse Sugar Mill (Mackay, Australia) for their cooperation and support.

• Support for this research is provided by means of an ARC Industry Linkage grant and PhD scholarship.

• The funding assistance provided by SRI is also acknowledged and appreciated.