The current situation on the market concerning industrial products has a great influence on production techniques, i. e. the development is concerned more with smaller batches than mass production of similar items. The reason for this is that competition requires the safisfaction of growing customer requirements. In addition, the life of product lines is getting shorter with an expanding field of products. Therefore the trends in machine tool design are directed towards flexible automated production. For the manufacturing of axially symmetrical parts 'flexible manufacturing cells' consisting of lathes and robots have been created. For prismatic workpieces, stations with automated clamping and pallet changers now exist which also improve the prospects for flexible production systems.