Hello David
If I understand correctly, the premise here is that these are all new out-of-the-box devices. Also, I am assuming that they don’t have any IP addresses configured, as is the case with most Cisco platforms, so initial configuration MUST occur over the console. This means there will still be a large amount of physical work involved regardless, connecting and disconnecting console cables.
In such a case, the only automation that I can think of that would be helpful is to create a script that would set up the default configuration that you desire (in a terminal programme such as SecureCRT for example) and plug each switch in to the console and run the script. As you said in your post, if you don’t have the initial IP settings set up, you can’t take advantage of products such as NCM.
Another option is to write the configuration to NVRAM memory chips and install them physically into each switch.
(Depending on the platform these may be removable). This still doesn’t solve the large amount of physical work involved, and may actually take up more time than the conventional configuration method. I have not tried this so I don’t know what the practical implications are.
I hope this has been helpful!
Laz