Systems and methods for fractionally pulsing aircraft components and for designing manufacturing systems utilizing the same

Systems and methods for manufacturing aircraft are disclosed. For example, a method for repetitively manufacturing aircraft comprises fractionally pulsing a constituent part down an assembly line by periodically advancing the constituent part down the assembly line by less than a length of the constituent part. The periodic advancing may include advancing the aircraft component by a pulse length that is less than the length of the aircraft component, stopping movement of the aircraft component for a duration and performing work on the aircraft component, and then advancing the aircraft component by the pulse length again. In another example, a method comprises determining a fractional pulse length to fractionally pulse one or more constituent parts of an aircraft based on one or more of a minimum workstation length of one or more assembly line workstations and a minimum section length of one or more work processes to be performed.