Method for operating an engineering system for an industrial process automation system, in which - components of the industrial process automation system are each represented by a computer-based object within the engineering system and are persistently stored in at least one engineering database associated with at least one server of the engineering system, - the objects are managed by the server within a hierarchical object structure, the object structure comprising dependencies between objects, - functions of the engineering system are made available by the server via a standard service interface as services for use by clients of different types, - the standard service interface is formed by means of a gateway, which is assigned to the server and by means of which the services of the engineering system are made available on a client-specific basis, - for client-specific service requests at least one respective client type is identified, and on the basis thereof client-specific service requests are forwarded to a client-specific service access point of the gateway, characterized in that - the objects stored in the engineering database comprise operationally used productive data of a technical system, - process sequences and states for querying and/or processing objects stored in the engineering database are stored in an order database separate from the engineering database, wherein the process sequences and states are represented by order processing objects within the order database and comprise event-driven state transitions in the event of a query and/or processing of objects stored in the engineering database, - objects stored in the engineering database are queried and/or processed by an order processing service by means of the order processing objects stored in the order database, - access to process sequences and states stored in the order database takes place via a server-side order interface separate from the standard service interface. - components of the industrial process automation system are each represented by a computer-based object within the engineering system and are persistently stored in at least one engineering database associated with at least one server of the engineering system, - the objects are managed by the server within a hierarchical object structure, the object structure comprising dependencies between objects, - functions of the engineering system are made available by the server via a standard service interface as services for use by clients of different types, - the standard service interface is formed by means of a gateway, which is assigned to the server and by means of which the services of the engineering system are made available on a client-specific basis, - for client-specific service requests at least one respective client type is identified, and on the basis thereof client-specific service requests are forwarded to a client-specific service access point of the gateway, characterized in that - the objects stored in the engineering database comprise operationally used productive data of a technical system, - process sequences and states for querying and/or processing objects stored in the engineering database are stored in an order database separate from the engineering database, wherein the process sequences and states are represented by order processing objects within the order database and comprise event-driven state transitions in the event of a query and/or processing of objects stored in the engineering database, - objects stored in the engineering database are queried and/or processed by an order processing service by means of the order processing objects stored in the order database, - access to process sequences and states stored in the order database takes place via a server-side order interface separate from the standard service interface.