Wire harness assembly is one of the most labor intensive processes in manufa- tuing, but the process has not been fully automated yet. In this paper a variety of concepts for flexible automated assembly system are suggested to design a robot- based wire harness assembly cell. All concepts are featuring an automatic, fedkng of wires, terminating routing, inserting and bundling. Based upon possible assembly methods and procedures, six alternative systems are proposed and, finally, evaluated10 from the view point of system performance such as flexibility, reliability assembly time and equipment cost.