A method to control a material remover can include generating a test path to be processed by the processing circuitry to cause the material remover of the machine tool to move along a predetermined path; causing the processing circuitry to execute the test path and move the material remover along the test path; timing at least one of the performance of the processing circuitry and the movement of the material remover along the test path to generate machine tool timings; and using the machine tool timings to set limits which are arranged to subsequently be used when cutting paths are generated for the machine tool for which the test path has been generated.