Strategic decisions in early production planning phases have a high impact on various production aspects. Decision making is often based on vague expert knowledge due to lack of a reliable knowledge base. Implications of this problem are especially observable in the field of assembly planning, which integrates results from various planning disciplines. The proposed paper introduces a new concept and the corresponding data model for application of Data Mining (DM) methods in the field of production assembly planning and product design. The concept presents assistance potentials for development of new products variants along the product emergence process (PEP).