"Some assembly required." This phrase strikes fear into the heart of every parent faced with putting together a bicycle on the eve of a kid's birthday. But it's also an intimidating fact of life for manufacturing firms-perhaps none more so than aircraft makers, whose employees must often piece together bewildering assortments of parts using volumes of jumbled instructional verbiage. Wouldn't it be nice if these complex transportation systems could tell an assembler how to put them together?

Select from the choices above to read the entire article.