This paper examines the benefits of centralised production systems to optimise production within a bulk handling supply chain and the engineering processes used to safely introduce these systems to existing iron ore mining operations. Operations built up over multi-year timeframes can develop site-specific practices and terminology, and a complicated web of inter-connected legacy systems, limiting the extent of improvements by project managers, site engineers and analysts. Process control systems are frequently modified to integrate new systems and advance production optimisation: Data from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) business systems is imported to reduce manual entry errors and provide a forward lookahead for site personnel; process safety initiatives require remote operators to correctly detect, understand and respond to complicated equipment failures in a diligent and confident manner; and continuous improvement processes and production analytics require data to be understood in relation to the production context at a specific time, and reliable information about production, stock, quality levels and changes need to be crosschecked and tracked through an entire supply chain. A Manufacturing Execution System (MES), in industrial operations, often termed Production Sequencing, Route Sequencing or Task Management Systems, can assist to provide a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) interface using ERP planning and collated production data to provide immediate context for operators and metadata for later analytics. Building an MES application using Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) and SCADA based technologies familiar to site personnel allows them to validate benefits, make modifications or confidently package changes to third parties for larger expansions. A case study of an MES production system built on an open and accessible platform is provided to help engineers, operations and wider mining organisations understand the benefits of introducing a centralised production system to brownfield operations. CITATION:Mavrick, R and Derada, B, 2019. Taking back control: the benefits of introducing centralised production systems to entire brownfields operations, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2019, pp 230238 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).