I was listening to the Swarfcast pod cast - ok Noah Graff here is your plug - 
: https://todaysmachiningworld.com/pivoting-to-manufacture-a-product-with-michael-gimbel/
The Swarfcast podcast is usually pretty interesting. The one I was listening to today is on CNC spindle grippers from Gimbel Automation - I've never heard of this. Essentially you put a "gripper" or CAT 40 tool in the machine spindle which has an air powered actuator allowing you to pick up prepared stock from a tray and put it into your air powered vise. Do your operations, then pick the finished part up and put it back in the tray. So automation without robots or pallets. Add it to your CNC and with some clever wrap around script programming you can take a one operation GCode file and turn it into a batch job.
Watch some videos - seeing is much clearer:
: https://todaysmachiningworld.com/pivoting-to-manufacture-a-product-with-michael-gimbel/The Swarfcast podcast is usually pretty interesting. The one I was listening to today is on CNC spindle grippers from Gimbel Automation - I've never heard of this. Essentially you put a "gripper" or CAT 40 tool in the machine spindle which has an air powered actuator allowing you to pick up prepared stock from a tray and put it into your air powered vise. Do your operations, then pick the finished part up and put it back in the tray. So automation without robots or pallets. Add it to your CNC and with some clever wrap around script programming you can take a one operation GCode file and turn it into a batch job.
Watch some videos - seeing is much clearer: