  In product design, a decomposition of the overall product function into a set
of smaller, interacting functions is usually considered a crucial first step
for any computer-supported design tool. Here, we propose a new approach for the
decomposition of functions especially suited for later solutions based on
Artificial Intelligence. The presented approach defines the decomposition
problem in terms of a planning problem--a well established field in Artificial
Intelligence. For the planning problem, logic-based solvers can be used to find
solutions that compute a useful function structure for the design process.
Well-known function libraries from engineering are used as atomic planning
steps. The algorithms are evaluated using two different application examples to
ensure the transferability of a general function decomposition.
