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, wherein at least one functional unit comprises more than one action, and if no module description corresponding to this functional unit is found in the catalogue, this functional unit is further decomposed into at least two smaller functional units, and the catalogue is searched for module descriptions corresponding to these smaller functional units; • 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; and • for each functional unit for which at least one matching module description is found, inserting, into the construction plan (la), 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, wherein at least one functional unit comprises more than one action, and if no module description corresponding to this functional unit is found in the catalogue, this functional unit is further decomposed into at least two smaller functional units, and the catalogue is searched for module descriptions corresponding to these smaller functional units; • 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; and • for each functional unit for which at least one matching module description is found, inserting, into the construction plan (la), the corresponding physical process module, wherein the physical process modules are interconnected like the functional units to which they correspond.