A computer-implemented method for generating a construction plan for a modular plant that is to execute a given industrial process, said construction plan being a plan for realizing the plant by interconnecting physical process modules, and said method comprising the following steps: • providing a flow chart of the industrial process, said flow chart comprising a sequence of actions, wherein each action has at least one input for an educt to be processed by the action and at least one output for a product produced by the action, and wherein at least one product of one action is an educt for another action; • providing at least one catalogue of module descriptions, wherein each module description characterizes at least the educt inputs and the product outputs of at least one physical process module, as well as the physical actions performed within the physical process module; • decomposing the flow chart into functional units with at least one educt input, at least one product output and one or more actions leading from the one or more educts to the one or more products; • searching the at least one catalogue for module descriptions that match to functional units in the sense that the process module to which the module description pertains is physically able to convert the at least one educt of the functional unit to the product of the functional unit by means of the one or more actions of the functional unit, wherein, if multiple module descriptions matching to the same functional unit are found in the catalogue, priorities (41'-46') are assigned to these module descriptions according to at least one predetermined criterion, and the physical process module corresponding to the module description with the highest priority (41'-46') is chosen for including in the construction plan, wherein the priority (41'-46') is based at least in part on: o the mean time between failures, MTBF, of the physical process module, and/or ο the mean time to failure, MTTF, of the physical process module; and • for each functional unit for which at least one matching module description is found, inserting, into the construction plan, the corresponding physical process module, wherein the physical process modules are interconnected like the functional units to which they correspond. • providing a flow chart of the industrial process, said flow chart comprising a sequence of actions, wherein each action has at least one input for an educt to be processed by the action and at least one output for a product produced by the action, and wherein at least one product of one action is an educt for another action; • providing at least one catalogue of module descriptions, wherein each module description characterizes at least the educt inputs and the product outputs of at least one physical process module, as well as the physical actions performed within the physical process module; • decomposing the flow chart into functional units with at least one educt input, at least one product output and one or more actions leading from the one or more educts to the one or more products; • searching the at least one catalogue for module descriptions that match to functional units in the sense that the process module to which the module description pertains is physically able to convert the at least one educt of the functional unit to the product of the functional unit by means of the one or more actions of the functional unit, wherein, if multiple module descriptions matching to the same functional unit are found in the catalogue, priorities (41'-46') are assigned to these module descriptions according to at least one predetermined criterion, and the physical process module corresponding to the module description with the highest priority (41'-46') is chosen for including in the construction plan, wherein the priority (41'-46') is based at least in part on: o the mean time between failures, MTBF, of the physical process module, and/or ο the mean time to failure, MTTF, of the physical process module; and o the mean time between failures, MTBF, of the physical process module, and/or ο the mean time to failure, MTTF, of the physical process module; and • for each functional unit for which at least one matching module description is found, inserting, into the construction plan, the corresponding physical process module, wherein the physical process modules are interconnected like the functional units to which they correspond.