So what exactly is a Makino MMC? It’s a palletized automation system. It will take a part from a work-setting station, where a raw part would be loaded, for example, and move that part to an available machine or to a pallet storage system to await an available machine. On the other side, it will take a finished part from a machine and place it for extraction. In either case, the system does offer a pallet storage system for raw or finished parts. The system requires an upper-level software to manage and schedule parts for production. One of the key elements, our customers tell us, is that once you get a job set up and running, it stays resident in the cell controller software. What that means is, once the data is entered, the software keeps everything in memory so the next time you need to run the part, you just call up the file and run it. Scheduling of work is another key element of the system, allowing you to schedule short jobs to run during the work shifts and longer jobs during shifts where labor is not present, allowing your people to return to finished points and increase your ability to produce more at a faster rate.