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 (131-133) 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 (131-133) 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 (111-113) 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 (131-133) 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 (131-133) 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 (111-113) 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 . <EOS>