In today's business environment, the trend towards more product variety and customization is unbroken. Due to this development, the need of agile and reconfigurable production systems emerged to cope with various products and product families. To design and optimize production systems as well as to choose the optimal product matches, product analysis methods are needed. Indeed, most of the known methods aim to analyze a product or one product family on the physical level. Different product

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... ies, however, may differ largely in terms of the number and nature of components. This fact impedes an efficient comparison and choice of appropriate product family combinations for the production system. A new methodology is proposed to analyze existing products in view of their functional and physical architecture. The aim is to cluster these products in new assembly oriented product families for the optimization of existing assembly lines and the creation of future reconfigurable assembly systems. Based on Datum Flow Chain, the physical structure of the products is analyzed. Functional subassemblies are identified, and a functional analysis is performed. Moreover, a hybrid functional and physical architecture graph (HyFPAG) is the output which depicts the similarity between product families by providing design support to both, production system planners and product designers. An illustrative example of a nail-clipper is used to explain the proposed methodology. An industrial case study on two product families of steering columns of thyssenkrupp Presta France is then carried out to give a first industrial evaluation of the proposed approach. Abstract Powder metallurgy superalloy FGH96 is a key material for manufacturing aero-engine high temperature parts due to its excellent high-temperature mechanical performances. Machined surface integrity has a directly influence on the fatigue behavior. Unique properties of FGH96, like hightemperature strength and poor machinability, make it extremely difficult to control the machined surface integrity. Grinding technology utilizing super abrasive wheel is widely used in finish machining of powder metallurgy superalloy. Therefore, improving the fatigue property of parts by controlling grinding surface integrity is significantly important. Experimental results of grinding FGH96 with CBN electroplated wheel show that the grits size of wheel is the main factor influencing on surface roughness. With the decreases of the grits size, the surface roughness decreases gradually. Surface roughness of workpieces machined with 400#CBN wheel is Ra=0.76 μm, while that with 600#CBN wheel is Ra=0.56 μm. In the experimental conditions, feed speed and grinding depth have little influence on surface roughness. Grinding speed has hardly any influence on surface roughness. Meanwhile, the surface microhardness of workpieces is maintained at 460 HV to 500 HV and the surface residual stress is -700 MPa to -620 MPa. There is almost no plastic deformation in the microstructure of machined surface. Therefore, grits size of grinding wheel has a tremendous influence on surface integrity of powder metallurgy superalloy FGH96 in the range of experimental parameters, and controlling the surface roughness is a crucial method to improve the fatigue behavior of FGH96 parts. Abstract Powder metallurgy superalloy FGH96 is a key material for manufacturing aero-engine high temperature parts due to its excellent high-temperature mechanical performances. Machined surface integrity has a directly influence on the fatigue behavior. Unique properties of FGH96, like hightemperature strength and poor machinability, make it extremely difficult to control the machined surface integrity. Grinding technology utilizing super abrasive wheel is widely used in finish machining of powder metallurgy superalloy. Therefore, improving the fatigue property of parts by controlling grinding surface integrity is significantly important. Experimental results of grinding FGH96 with CBN electroplated wheel show that the grits size of wheel is the main factor influencing on surface roughness. With the decreases of the grits size, the surface roughness decreases gradually. Surface roughness of workpieces machined with 400#CBN wheel is Ra=0.76 μm, while that with 600#CBN wheel is Ra=0.56 μm. In the experimental conditions, feed speed and grinding depth have little influence on surface roughness. Grinding speed has hardly any influence on surface roughness. Meanwhile, the surface microhardness of workpieces is maintained at 460 HV to 500 HV and the surface residual stress is -700 MPa to -620 MPa. There is almost no plastic deformation in the microstructure of machined surface. Therefore, grits size of grinding wheel has a tremendous influence on surface integrity of powder metallurgy superalloy FGH96 in the range of experimental parameters, and controlling the surface roughness is a crucial method to improve the fatigue behavior of FGH96 parts.