The phrase "are meant to function" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe the intended purpose or role of something in a specific context.
Example: "These tools are meant to function as a means of improving efficiency in the workplace."
Alternatives: "are designed to operate" or "are intended to work".
Suggested menus are meant to function as a guide, not an eating girdle.
He said that his campaign committee pays to boost his posts, which are meant to function like re-election ads.
No doubt these phrases are meant to function as Homeric epithets of sorts, to remind us of who these women are.
Jeremijenko describes what she does as a kind of systems design — " 'artist' is a strange and often uncomfortable title, but it's useful," she says — and her most compelling pieces are meant to function beyond gallery walls.
The Male Chorus (Michael Hendrick) and Female Chorus (Orla Boylan), who are meant to function as narrators in the manner of Greek tragedy, here become an Edwardian-era British couple who, as if preaching a cautionary tale, recount the rape of the constant wife of the Roman general Collatinus by the brutal Etruscan prince Tarquinius.
But they are meant to function perfectly.
They were meant to function in a cluttered visual environment amid many messages.
That vision infuses the museum's entire ground floor, which is meant to function as a social mixing space.
I watch as people declare that they cannot get out of bed, cannot bear to go to work, cannot function as a human being is meant to function.
The nests of bumblebees which were meant to function as a pesticide-free control group were exposed to similar levels of neonicotinoids as those in the experimental group.
Again, part of the relentless hostility that is directed against the BBC comes from its origin as an institution that was meant to function in a sphere of autonomy that is outside the market.
