Disclosed is a system for processing a length of material (19). The system includes a timber-working head (4) which includes at least one cutting means, a drive mechanism (10) configured to drive the length of material (19) relative to the harvester head (4), and at least one distance measuring device. The system also includes at least one processor (13) configured to receive a signal indicating manual designation of a point along the length of material (19) as an first end point (21) and receive at least one signal from the distance measuring device, the signal indicating the distance between the first end point (21) to a second end point (20) on the length of material (19) with a sensor. The processor (13) is also configured to also determine the actual length of material (19) to be processed and determine at least one cutting position along the actual length of material (19), such that the value of lengths of material between the end points (20, 21) and cutting position is optimised. The timber-working head (4) is then used to cut the length of material (19) at the cutting position using the cutting means.
