Patent ID: 8473087

Claim:
A configuration management system for tracking a configuration associated with a process plant, comprising: a computer readable medium; a processor in communication with the computer-readable medium; a database that stores first data and second data, the first data representative of a process plant item adapted to represent a process entity within the process plant, the second data representative of a plurality of module class objects adapted to generically represent process entities within the process plant; a configuration routine stored on the computer-readable medium and configured to be executed by the processor to facilitate modification of the process plant item; a version control routine stored on the computer-readable medium and configured to be executed by the processor to: detect a modification of the process plant item; determine respective version data associated with each of one or more module class objects from which the modified process plant item was created; generate a version identifier for the modified process plant item; associate the version identifier with the modified process plant item; and associate the respective version data associated with each of the one or more module class objects from which the modified process plant item was created with the modified process plant item.