High security space Planetary Colonies (PC) (previously Planetary Interaction (PI)) is different to low and null security space Planetary Colonies, so they will not be talked about here.
The yields in high security space are lower, most likely as a penalty against the safety of this space, and so you must try and gain the most material from each and every planet you are extracting material from.
My end goal in this example is to produce Coolant.
I have six pilots extracting material from roughly half Storm and Gas planets.
Each pilot extracts the raw material on the planet, Aqueous Liquid and Ionic Solutions respectively, which is then converted on that planet, using the Basic Industry facility, into Water and Electrolytes.
Each pilot then collects the Water or Electrolytes and returns it to the same station as each other pilot, they then contract it all too the manufacturing pilot.
The Manufacturing Pilot (MP), who also does a small amount of extraction, then gathers all these contracts and will then have quite a pile of Water and Electrolytes.
The MP then takes those items to the Manufacturing Planet, of which this particular pilot has two. If the facility is empty 13,000 of each item can be moved to the input launchpad, this charges the system, if the advanced industry and routing has been setup the industry modules will now have enough material to start production of the coolant, which means another 1,760 of each item can now be moved into the input launchpad to replace the material now being converted into coolant in the advanced industry facilities.
Your actual figures may vary.
The advanced industry then routes the finished coolant into the output launchpad, which can then be picked up from the Player Owned Customs Office (POCO).
To keep the coolant production going all the time the input launchpad must be filled with material twice in a twenty four hour period.
To try and simplify it...
T0 Material (Aqueous Liquids or Ionic Solutions) > T1 Material (Water or Electrolytes) > Transport to Station > Contract to MP.
MP T1 Material > Manufacturing Planet > T2 Material (Coolant) > Transport to Station > Transport to Trade Hub > Profit.
So most of that is pretty straight forward, but here is an image of a manufacturing planet.
Notice the two launchpads in blue, the top one is the input and the bottom the output. Material is introduced into the input launchpad from the POCO, it is then routed into the various advanced industry modules that are waiting for it, once they have made the coolant they route it into the output launchpad on the bottom, and that will then appear in the POCO and can be exported from there into your ship.
To find out what can be produced on which planets in Eve online I find http://eveplanets.com to be quite useful.
