Functional entities: A concept to support product family and assembly system design

This paper is dedicated to the adaptation of product and assembly line design tools and methodology to product families. The main originality resides in the systematic decomposition of the family into so-called functional entities defined by the designer. The family is then considered as an assembly of entities which can be further designed and analysed separately. The paper presents the essentials on these concepts and describes their effects on subsequent design tools such as design-for-assembly, assembly planning or line layout