The article is devoted to the designs improvement of face mills with round inserts on the basis of a systems approach. The increasing a cutting efficiency with face mills is provided by improving their designs in the following aspects: increasing the tool life, accuracy and productivity, improving the quality of the machined parts surface. Analysis of the operating conditions of the milling cutters is carried out element by element (body, shank, inserts and their location, etc.), these components are considered as one system. The technological system (machine, holder, workpiece, tool) is presented as a supersystem, which is under the influence of active, intermediate acting, reactive and derivative factors. The article decomposes into elements (cutting, body, base and fastening parts) of a standard face mill with round inserts and performs their system analysis relatively the occurrence of adverse cutting conditions. On the basis of this the scheme of structural improvement aspects of face mills designs is developed. As a result of structural improvement and variants synthesis, the authors propose concepts of face mills designs for different machining conditions.