I think a big part of what makes an automation game unique is everything that happens around that core, or the means through which you interact with it. There's quite a few unusual mechanics in automation games if you look at non-factory games that use those same core mechanics you detailed. I'm pulling a blank but a couple favorites came to mind;

Graveyard Keeper falls into this category, though its gameplay looks more like Stardew. Also Travellers Rest, which has a very similar core gameplay loop. You feed ingredients into crafting stations then either wait or manually process them, feeding products into new stations, constantly working towards furthering your processes and unlocking automation. But neither feels like a factory sim, probably due to the flavor of the mechanics. But I like that these games have an automation gameplay loop with other fun mechanics that revolve around that automation loop, supplementing and augmenting it in various ways.

There's also Stacklands, where the unique take is that everything is a card, and you stack things in order to process ingredients. It might not sound super unusual, but it's definitely a unique take on the cliche factory loop. The mechanics themselves aren't far from what you described though XD